Summer Light: A Novel (21 page)

Chapter 11

H
EY
,
OLD MAN
,” the bald kid said. “Seen this?”

Serge stood there reading a purloined racing sheet. After Sunday’s knifing over a choice of TV programs, the cell block’s cable had been cut off and papers hard to come by. Serge didn’t look up, but he knew who was talking. New youngster on the unit, in for selling drugs—what else was new? Flexing his biceps, Serge made his face passive.

“Seen all I want to see of you,” Serge said. “Buzz off.”

“No, man,” insisted the kid, whose name was Tino. “You wanna see this.”

Serge had his eye on Talisker, a frisky two-year-old everyone had written off after his loss in the Burnham Stakes. Racing was not Serge’s game of choice, but in here he grabbed what he could. Scanning the page, he tried to ignore the kid long enough for some peace and quiet. But the tabloid headline came slamming into his vision:

CARTIER SECRET WEDDING BLUES

“What the hell?” Serge dropped the racing sheet.

“Your kid got married,” Tino told him. “Married some gold-digger bitch who put a spell on him.” He rattled on as if he was the reporter himself, all about the woman getting Martin to marry her using rose petals and love spells, how the fans were blaming her for distracting Martin and making him lose the Stanley Cup.

“He’s got another Trisha on his hands,” Serge muttered, starting to read the story.

“Got alimony, child support waiting to happen,” Tino commented. “Got me plenty of that. I know.”

“Shut up,” Serge said. “Get lost.”

“Why’re you talking to me like that? Didn’t I just bring you good news?”

“Go smoke crack,” Serge told him. An athlete all his life, he had no patience for strong young men who wrecked their bodies and minds with chemicals. Anyone in for drugs was off his list, and they were all in for drugs.

“I’m clean,” the kid protested, sounding hurt.

“Yeah, for the last ten minutes. Now leave me alone.”

Folding up the tabloid, Serge walked down to his cell. He lived on the skid row block, home of bone-breakers, wife-stranglers, subway-knifers. No one cared that he had thrice skated to Stanley Cup victories, that he had been wined and dined by senators and prime ministers. Serge didn’t care himself. He was in prison, with the violent and incorrigible, right where he was supposed to be.

Lying on his bunk, he again opened the paper. Hands shaking, he looked past the story to the accompanying photo. There was Martin. Jesus, Serge thought. My son, my son. He looked old and young at the same time, Serge’s towhead turning gray—gray!—his face getting lined—too damn old to be playing hockey, killing his body—but robust youth and fire still alive in his vivid blue eyes.

Martin had his arm around a woman. Pretty, very pretty. Nothing at all like Trisha—soft in every way Trisha was hard. Looking almost shy, as if she didn’t like the cameras pointing at her, but Serge knew that was probably part of the lie, one segment of her act. But staring at the picture of his new daughter-in-law—May, her name was—Serge wasn’t sure.

Later, in the dining hall, an inmate named Buford Dunham glanced over his shoulder. Buford laughed, staring at the picture.

“What’s funny?”

“Just wondering what’s her act,” Buford said.

“She’s no act. I know an act when I see one,” Serge said, ignoring Buford’s comment as he examined May’s open face, her happy eyes.

“You should. You lived one yourself. A hockey player by any other name’s just another asshole into the loan sharks. The press kissing your ass in one room, Joey the Cheese threatening to break your legs in the next.”

Serge was silent. Buford had worked for organized crime, and he knew what he was talking about. His favorite line was “You pay when I come, you pay on time.” He said it for everything from the morning paper to extra coffee at night.

“They eloped. True love, how nice,” Buford said.

But Serge barely heard. He was staring at the little girl in the picture. May’s daughter Kylie, the story said.
Out of the mouths of babes,
the reporter wrote,
came the truth—that her mother had been plotting this marriage for some time, casting a New Age net around the Gold Sledgehammer to make him fall in love with her.

Kylie was wearing Natalie’s cap. Serge put his finger on the picture. He would know that old hat anywhere. Serge had wangled a pair of caps—one for Natalie and one for Martin—from his friend John LeGrange, third-base coach for the Blue Jays, and sent them off on baseball season’s opening day. Martin must have given Kylie the hat.

“She’s no act,” Serge repeated.

“What?”

“He wouldn’t have given the kid Nat’s hat if her mother was an act.”

“What’re you doing, turning sentimental? Maybe we should rent a Jimmy Stewart video tonight. I’ll make the popcorn, you mix the martinis.”

Serge couldn’t take his eyes off the family picture. He stared so long, his eyes filled with tears. He wished the photo weren’t so grainy, that he could see their faces better. Natalie’s hat, he thought. What a nice hat. It fit Kylie well. It looked good on her.

“Looks good,” Serge said out loud. “Fits real nice.”

“Either quit talking like you have Alzheimer’s, or shut up.” “Shut up yourself,” Serge muttered, but only under his breath. He had a healthy, unholy respect for this inmate. Buford had been in the same line of work as the man who’d come to call that last day Serge had seen his granddaughter.

That last day, Serge thought, that last day. If only he could get it back. If only Serge could do that last day over again. He stared at the picture until it blurred entirely. Natalie was dead. That fact would never change, and Serge knew it was his fault. Now Martin had a new family Serge would never meet.

And Serge knew that was his fault, too.

Hockey practice had started, but the Cartiers were safe in Black Hall until the regular season began. The press was in a feeding frenzy, so May wanted to stay as far away from the arena as she could. Her telephone rang so often—new clients, strangers saying variously supportive and hateful things, reporters requesting interviews—that she hired an answering service just to take messages.

Genny sent a letter of support, along with a big basket of Lac Vert apples and a jar of apple butter. May baked a pie and served the apple butter with English muffins every day, and just knowing Genny had experienced the same kind of publicity made the ordeal easier.

Kids at school had started treating Kylie differently. Some who had never paid attention to her before now wanted to be her best friend. She had been invited to birthday parties for kids in third, fourth, and fifth grade, girls and boys she didn’t even know. Other kids teased her for helping May cast spells on Martin, to get him to marry her.

But the worst happened one day when Kylie came sobbing into the barn, straight off the school bus into her mother’s arms. The autumn day was golden, the color of dried wheat, with summer’s last heat making it possible to still wear short-sleeved shirts and jeans.

“We didn’t put spells on Martin, did we, Mom?” Kylie cried, her arms around May’s waist while Tobin stood there watching.

“No, honey, we didn’t.”

“He would have married you anyway, right?”

“That’s what he says,” May replied.

“What’s a basket?”

“Well, you know.” May smiled, confused. “We’ve made them ourselves, soaking the reeds and weaving them.”

“But when it’s about a person? When it’s about me?”

“I don’t know,” May said, feeling chilled. “What did they say?”

“That I’m a basket without a real father.” Kylie’s lip was quivering again, and May heard Tobin draw in a deep breath. “That we only want Martin for his money.”

“Who told you that?”

“A big kid, Joseph Newton. He’s in fifth grade, and he said his father told him.”

“Oh, it’s not true, Kylie. Not true at all.”

May sat with Kylie for as long as it took for the sobs to stop, until she climbed off May’s lap and wandered away to look for Aunt Enid. Tobin stepped forward, pulling a chair close to May.

“He called her a bastard.” May was shaking.

“I heard her,” Tobin said quietly. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve protected her all this time,” May went on. “No one has ever known our story, and now the papers are printing it. They know about Gordon, they know I never got married….”

“They should know you’re the best mother around,” Tobin said. “That you’ve always put Kylie first, that Martin Cartier is the lucky one—”

“Thanks, Tobe.” May wiped her eyes. She swallowed hard, wanting to spill all her feelings, her fears and anxieties. Her life was changing so fast; suddenly her story was everywhere, strangers judging her for her past and present.

“There might be one silver lining,” Tobin said, her eyes glinting wickedly.

“What’s that?”

“Well, if the press is after you, they’re probably after Gordon, too. I can just see the hallowed halls of Swopes and Bray, swarming with reporters and cameras and microphones.”

“That is a truly lovely image,” May said, closing her eyes. She was glad Tobin had veered off into humor, because she was still so upset she didn’t know what to do.

Later that night, May held Kylie, waiting for sleep to come and the moon to rise. Sitting on the edge of Kylie’s bed with the lights out and the barn cats sprawled across the quilt, she heard Martin’s car in the driveway. After talking to Aunt Enid downstairs, he came up the stairs two at a time and burst into the room.

“What happened today?” he demanded, standing in the doorway.

May slipped away from Kylie; together, she and Martin walked down the hall to their room.

“Someone called her a bastard,” May told him. “Kylie didn’t understand the word, but she got the meaning.”

“Who?”

“Some fifth-grader. His father told him, and if you only knew what I’d like to do to his father—”

“I’ll annihilate him,” Martin said, pushing her down onto the bed. “I’ll send the little creep into the boards so hard, he’ll leave his teeth in yesterday. Seriously, what’s his name?”

“The boy is Joseph Newton, and his father is Patrick.”

“Bad news,” Martin said, grabbing the phone and paging through the local phone book. He snapped the buttons, letting out a deep breath.

When the phone was answered, he didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Patrick Newton?…This is Martin Cartier…Yeah, you are a fan?…Well, let me tell you why I am calling. I have a child in your son’s school, and it comes to my attention that Joseph called her a bastard…That’s right—the word was bastard…Kids’ll be kids, you say?” Martin’s voice was rising in anger. “Listen, Mr. Newton, where I come from, kids learn garbage like that from their parents…They learn to build themselves up at the expense of others too small to defend themselves, eh?…That’s right, I’m blaming you. And if I hear that it happens again, I’ll do more than blame you…Good, I’m glad to hear it. I don’t want to hear of Kylie being hurt again.”

He hung up the phone and faced May.

“Thank you,” she said.

“He’s a reasonable man, after all,” Martin told her.

“For a minute, I thought you were going to go over and beat the hell out of him.”

“So did he,” Martin said, his eyes hard.