What's Left Behind

by Gail Bowen

  “If you’d like, I can take you over to Madeleine and Lena and you can help them feed the koi,” I said.

  “I’d like that,” Bridie said. “I have a book about fish, but I’ve never seen one up close.” She slid her hand into mine. “Could you come with me? Sometimes I’m shy.”

  I took her hand. “Me too,” I said.

  She knit her brow. “But you’re not shy right now,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “I know all the people who are here.”

  “I know five of the people,” she said. “Madeleine, Lena, Mieka, Brock, and you. Is that enough?”

  “Five is enough,” I said.

  After introducing Bridie to the koi, I went back to talk to Brock. He was at the beer cooler and he snapped the cap off a Great Western lager and held the bottle out to me. “Ready for this?” he said.

  “I am.” I gestured towards the three girls kneeling by the fishpond. “Mission accomplished.”

  I took the lager from him, and he got another out of the cooler for himself.

  “So what’s the story?” I said.

  “I wish I knew. Half an hour ago, Michael called and asked if he could drop Bridie by the condo. Bridie’s nanny, Zenaya, had just quit.”

  “Did the nanny explain why?”

  “Michael hadn’t talked to her. Slater delivered the news and Michael is baffled. He says Zenaya’s salary was more than generous, and her only obligation was to care for Bridie. Michael has a guest house on his property and that’s where Zenaya lived. According to Michael, until lately, Zenaya seemed satisfied.”

  “But that changed.”

  “Apparently. Michael is convinced he’s not getting the whole story and he wants to get to the bottom of what went wrong.”

  “So you’re taking care of Bridie so that Slater and Michael can iron out the problem.”

  Brock averted his gaze. “From what Michael says, the situation with Zenaya is just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “He and Slater have other problems?”

  Brock nodded. “Serious problems. I know Michael would have left Slater long ago if it weren’t for Bridie.”

  “Does Michael have any legal claim on her?”

  “Michael is punctilious.” Brock said. “He started adoption proceedings the day he and Slater were married. Legally, Bridie is as much Michael’s as Slater’s, but custody is not the issue.”

  “I saw Michael with Bridie at UpSlideDown a week or so ago. He seemed devoted to her.”

  “He is,” Brock said. “That child has already been through so much. Not long before Slater’s wife, Kelly, died, she discovered that he was gay and that he’d been having sex with men throughout their marriage. Understandably, it was devastating for her. She was a devout Catholic, so divorce was out of the question.”

  I glanced over at the girls. Madeleine and Lena were teaching Bridie how to do a cartwheel. Bridie’s small body was tense with fear and determination, but when her cartwheel turned out well, her face lit up. “She’s a sensitive child,” I said. “She would have picked up on the conflict between her parents.”

  “She did, and then Kelly died.” Brock sipped his beer. “And you know the rest. Slater started drinking heavily, engaging in ‘risky behaviours,’ and fiddling with clients’ trust funds. He got disbarred. He was punishing himself, but of course Bridie suffered.”

  “And Michael doesn’t want her to suffer again,” I said. “Slater is among my least favourite people on the planet, but for Bridie’s sake, I hope that he and Michael can keep her from being hurt.”

  Brock was silent. During his campaign for city council, Brock had been on the receiving end of vicious racial and homophobic slurs and remained impassive, but that afternoon, the prospect that Bridie would again be wounded by the adults in her life was sickening him.

  I reached out and touched Brock’s hand. “You and Michael were hoping you could find a way to be together,” I said.

  “We were,” he said softly. “I don’t think that’s in the cards any more.”

  We’d shoved three picnic tables together so our dinner on the roof would feel more like a party. When it was time to eat, Madeleine, Lena, and Bridie spread a blanket close to the big table and Lexi plopped down next to them. While they waited for their burgers, our granddaughters taught Bridie and Lexi a clapping game that involved complex rhythms, split-second timing, and endless giggling. It wasn’t long before Noah and Delia Wainberg’s grandson, Jacob, and Kai began squirming to join the game. Accepting the inevitable, Noah and Brock, who both weighed in at well over two hundred and fifty pounds, spread a blanket beside the girls and led Jacob and Kai in a clapalong.

  The barbecue was a success. Peter, Angus, Declan, and Zack handled the grilling. Maisie spent most of the party holding Kai and chatting quietly about pregnancy and parenthood with Mieka and Margot. The three women clearly took pleasure in one another’s company, and as the late-afternoon sun glinted off Margot’s honey-blond bob, Maisie’s tangle of copper curls and Mieka’s ash-blond ponytail, I felt a bloom of peace.

  After Margot had opened her gifts, Taylor and Declan brought out the cake and we sang “Happy Birthday.” Brock proposed the toast to Margot. He held Kai while Margot held Lexi. Brock’s expression was tender, and his words were graceful. When he took his place beside her, Margot touched his cheek and murmured, “That was perfect.” Zack and I shared a look. “It’s not going to happen,” I said.

  “I know,” Zack said. “But that doesn’t stop me from wishing it could.”

  Lee’s funeral was taking place at Wesley United Church at eleven o’clock on a sunny, cloudless, and unseasonably hot morning. At the last minute I had replaced the spring suit and pumps I had planned to wear with a sleeveless summer dress and sandals. Zack and Taylor, too, had dressed for comfort rather than ceremony.

  Wesley United was a small church, but Lee’s funeral was a big event. The church would be packed with family, friends, and the curious, and the building did not have air-conditioning. Bobby’s friends had tested to see how many electric fans they could plug in without blowing a fuse and then purchased a dozen battery-operated fans as backup. I’d bought every paper fan I could find in Regina’s Chinatown. We had done our best, but it was 37° Celsius. As Zack drove out of the city, I saw the heat shimmering off the pavement and I knew that our best would not be good enough.

  The service Maisie and Peter decided upon was simple and personal. The Christmas before, Bobby had hand-carved a pine box for Lee’s collection of Victorian bridal buttons, and Maisie found comfort in the idea that Lee’s ashes were in something that had meaning for her. On the altar was the old school desk that Lee used for homework when she was growing up. The pine box was on the desk; beside it, in a frame Bobby had finished just the night before, was the picture of Lee at seven Bette had taken.

  All the musical selections came from recordings of Glenn Gould performing Bach. The crystalline beauty of Gould’s playing soothed our ragged emotions. Chesney Langen’s eulogy celebrated a woman of complexity and commitment. “Lee wasn’t a saint,” she said. “She was a human being, a fine human being but human nonetheless. She made mistakes, but she always learned from them and she tried to do better. Lee’s life was not long, but the real measure of a life is not its length but its depth.” Chesney gazed slowly around the church, seeming to take in every face. “Lee lived fully, loved deeply, and made the world a better place. No one could have done more with the number of years she was given.”

  There were three readings: Bobby Stevens read the Twenty-Third Psalm. Maisie read the Buddhist story “The Mustard Seed,” in which a mother grieving for her dead son goes to the Buddha and begs him to restore her son to her. The Buddha says he can cure the woman’s son if she brings him a handful of mustard seed, but the mustard seed must be taken from a house where no one has lost a child or a parent. The mother wanders the streets carrying her dead son, but every home has suffered a death. Finally, weary and hopeless, she realizes that death is co
mmon to all. She puts aside her selfish grief, buries her son, and returns to the Buddha and the comfort of his teachings.

  The final reading was Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill.” It was Lee’s favourite. Zack had practised it many times at home so that his voice wouldn’t break when he read the poem’s final lines: “Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means/Time held me green and dying/Though I sang in my chains like the sea.” Zack recited Thomas’s poignant words with such fervour that my throat closed. When he wheeled back to the place beside me, I reached out and took his hand.

  Mansell and Quinn Donnelly had arrived early. They sat across the aisle from us with the Stevens family. Both Donnellys had on black suits, and both clearly suffered from the heat in the crowded, airless church. Mansell was sweating profusely, and perspiration had started to make inroads on Quinn’s careful makeup. Though Mansell showed no emotion, throughout the funeral a small smile played across Quinn’s thin lips. Beside her, Bobby remained calm. Piper Edwards was beside him, watching his face anxiously, but Bobby saw only the carved pine box on the altar. Bette was fighting for control.

  Throughout the service, the emotion inside the church had been building incrementally. Just as it seemed the grief was about to crest, Chesney stepped forward to offer a final prayer. I offered a prayer too. I’d asked Milo to stand at the back of the church in case Simon showed up. I had repeatedly glanced towards the door, but Milo was always alone. Simon never appeared. It seemed we’d been spared that sorrow.

  Relieved that there wouldn’t be an ugly scene, and calmed by Chesney’s words and the recording of Glenn Gould playing the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, I moved down the aisle. Milo was waiting just inside the door. When Zack wheeled out, Milo took my arm and drew me aside. “Look up there,” he said, gesturing towards the altar. Mansell Donnelly had picked up the picture of Lee that had been placed on her old school desk and was staring at it. Twice, his wife tugged his arm and whispered something, but he ignored her. Finally, Quinn took the picture from him, returned it to the school desk, and marched him down the aisle. Mansell’s face was devoid of expression, his eyes unseeing – the face of a sleepwalker. The Donnellys seemed not to notice us as they walked by.

  “What do you make of that?” Milo said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “None of this seems real.”

  Milo took both my hands in his. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, just dreading the next few hours.”

  “Do what you have to do. I’ve got this. Twenty minutes ago I checked the churchyard. It was a zoo. I called that private security firm Zack uses. They should be here any minute. It won’t take them long to get the crowd under control.” Milo’s hands were cool. For a moment we faced each other without speaking. Finally, I withdrew my hands. “What would I do without you?”

  “You’d be fine,” Milo said.

  The parking area beside Wesley United had long since been filled to overflowing. Media vans, trucks, and cars were parked on the church lawn, in the driveway, on the highway shoulder, and even on the grass in the old cemetery. People with handheld cameras were taping people with microphones talking to people holding signs. Some of the signs had pictures of Lee with the dates of her birth and death; some bore only the cruel and dismissive epithet SLUT. An impromptu memorial of teddy bears and flowers in plastic sheaths had sprung up at the edge of the cemetery. It seemed everyone with a phone was taking selfies. When she saw the circus, Maisie recoiled and buried her face in her hands.

  She and Peter were walking ahead of Zack, Taylor, and me. A woman carrying a SLUT sign spotted Maisie and yelled, “There’s her sister,” and the sea of selfie-takers switched targets and aimed their cameras at Maisie and Peter. Maisie froze. Peter took her arm and led her through the crowd to the cottonwood tree where the ladies of the United Church had set up tables of cold drinks and dainties. Brock, Angus, and Bobby had removed their jackets and ties, rolled up their shirtsleeves, and were now setting out chairs for older people and carrying food and drink from the kitchen of the church hall.

  Bette Stevens supervised from a chair by the door to the church hall. She was wan but in command. As people filed by to offer their condolences, our family stood with Maisie in a kind of informal reception line. Some of the faces were familiar to me. When a woman whom I recognized from her organic fruit and vegetable stand at the farmers’ market approached, I tensed. Arranging her golden beets and baby eggplants, the woman had struck me initially as gentle and otherworldly, but her messianic zeal for protecting the environment was offputting. Her opening gambit with each customer was the same. “We humans are just travellers on this earth. We come and go, but the land is forever.”

  I’d dismissed the woman as a flake, slightly askew but harmless, and I’d continued to buy her golden beets and baby eggplants. However, that afternoon as she stood in front of me, her face twisted with rage, I was uneasy. “We have to make sure they pay for what they’ve done,” she said.

  “Lee wouldn’t want us to be vengeful,” I said.

  “An eye for an eye,” she said, and then, silver hair streaming, she floated off.

  Most of the people in the condolence line offered a few words. More than a few were overcome when they saw Maisie and simply embraced her.

  I was concerned about Maisie. The heat had grown oppressive, and she was pale. The line seemed neverending, and when she swayed and leaned into Peter for support, I slipped into the church hall to get her a glass of water. When I came out, I saw Quinn and Mansell Donnelly heading away from the church towards the parking area. If there was ever a time to talk about putting an end to the insanity, this was it. After I’d given the water to Maisie, I sprinted towards the Donnellys.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  Mansell didn’t respond. He still had the thousand-yard stare of a man on the edge of shock, but my appearance ignited Quinn.

  “Not now,” she snapped. The long bangs of her cropped platinum hair were damp with perspiration and there were sweat stains in the armpits of her black silk suit. “Mansell and I have to go back to the office. It’s important.”

  “Look at your husband’s face,” I said. “He’s devastated. We all are. What could be more important than trying to find a way to salvage what we can from the terrible waste of Lee’s life? I don’t know why you hated her, but Lee’s dead now. We need to have the talk we should have had the day she died.”

  Bette Stevens was walking towards us. She was in earshot, but I was too angry to care, and I continued my harangue. “Quinn, you agreed to see me in the early afternoon the day Lee was murdered. I was five minutes early for our meeting, but when I arrived at Lancaster your Porsche shot out of the parking lot. If we’d talked, this tragedy might have been averted.”

  Quinn’s eyes were fiery. “Are you accusing me of killing Lee?”

  My intention was simply to remind Quinn that we’d already agreed to talk and it was past time to honour that agreement, but I’d hit a nerve so I kept the pressure on. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” I said. “But given what’s happened since, I think I deserve an explanation. Why did you run off that day?”

  When Bette Stevens joined us, she was pale and breathless. “Quinn drove out to the farm because I needed help,” she said. She slid her arm through her brother’s and looked into his face, seemingly seeking support. When Mansell continued to stare into space, Bette’s confusion was obvious, but she carried on with her narrative. “The pain from my sciatica had become debilitating. I needed to see my neurologist, but I didn’t trust myself to drive to Regina. Bobby was in Saskatoon, and I couldn’t find Mansell, so I called Quinn. By the time she got out to the farm, the pain was manageable. Quinn stayed with me until she was sure I was able to cope, then she went back to the city.”

  “Okay,” I said. I turned to Quinn. “We still have to talk,” I said. “If you don’t want to deal with me directly, choose somebody from your side to talk to somebody from our side. By this time tomorrow, we
have to agree on criteria that will ensure fair play for the rest of the campaign. If Lancaster isn’t willing to do that, I’ll tell the media I made the offer and you refused to cooperate.”

  When I linked up with our family again, Zack wheeled over to talk to me. “What was that about?”

  My husband listened without interruption to the précis of my conversation with Bette and the Donnellys. When I finished, he said, “That should move matters along.”

  “Fingers crossed,” I said. “How are things here?”

  “Peter took Maisie back to the farm. The sun and the emotion were too much for her. I told him we could handle the condolences.”

  And we did. As the line inched forward, we stood in the heat and listened as people reminisced about Lee’s childhood and lamented her death. We thanked them for coming and promised to let them know if there was anything they could do to help. When George Sawchuk reached me, my heart lurched. He was holding on but barely.

  “I see the wisdom of Ernest’s advice about letting go. But I just can’t do it,” he said. “Even when she was a child, Lee was special. She always stayed at the table to listen when Colin, Dad, and I talked about the kind of farming we were committed to. Young as she was, she never wandered off or interrupted. If she didn’t understand a word she’d ask, but apart from that she just sat there taking it all in.”

  The burden of sadness crushed me, and I turned to watch a water sprinkler on the lawn spinning in the sunlight, filling the air with coolness and rainbow mist.

  We went straight from the reception in the churchyard to Lawyers’ Bay. May 30 was early for a swim in a prairie lake, but after the funeral we were all hot and miserable and the water was inviting. Zack and I had brought Madeleine and Lena with us. Mieka had two birthday parties to handle at UpSlideDown and the girls loved the lake. Milo was a loner, but there are times when even loners shouldn’t be alone, and I asked him to join us for a swim and dinner. Margot and her family were there, as were Brock and Angus. It took four adults to get Lexi and Kai water-ready, but finally we all headed for the dock.