The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn (46 page)

“I’m missing you,” he said.

“I’m missing you, too,” I said. “The room is full of sunlight, and the paperwhites in the window are blooming. If you give me five minutes, I can put on Mozart, slip into something erotic, and send the kids to school without any breakfast.”

“I really do miss you, Jo,” he said.

“Then come back.”

“It wouldn’t work the way I am now.” I could hear his intake of breath. “Joanne, I called to tell you I’m going away for a while.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Partly because Eli – my nephew – needs more help than I can give him. There’s an elder up at Loon Lake who helped me through a bad patch once. I think he might be able to help Eli.” Alex paused, then he said quietly. “And I think he might be able to help me. I seem to have been making a lot of lousy decisions lately.”

“Lousy decisions don’t need to be carved in stone.”

“Maybe Loon Lake will make me as sure of that as you seem to be.”

“Alex, I’m glad you called.”

“So am I,” he said.

After I had showered and dressed, I felt so grateful that I thought it was time to get a few karmic waves going. As soon as I got to my office, I called Jill and invited her for Easter dinner. She said she and Tom had plans, but she sounded friendly, and when she heard Mieka and Peter would be there, she was wistful. “Don’t let them go home without seeing me,” she said. Jill had known Mieka and Peter almost all of their lives, and they had always enjoyed her as much as she enjoyed them. I promised they’d get in
touch. Then I took a deep breath and dialled Julie Gallagher’s number. To my surprise, she said she’d be delighted to join us. As I hung up, I sensed that we were, at long last, heading into the final act. If we were lucky, the play that had begun as a tragedy might end up like a Shakespearean comedy, with all past cruelties forgiven, all misunderstandings corrected, and all broken relationships mended.

When I got ready to leave the office late Thursday afternoon, I came upon the copy of
Sleeping Beauty
Kellee Savage had thrust into my hand a thousand years ago. Remembering Kellee’s misery that afternoon, I felt a stab of remorse, but if Ed Mariani’s reading of the situation was right, wherever Kellee was she should be feeling remorse, not evoking it. I flipped through the book in my hand, and noticed that it had been checked out of the Education library. I might not be able to exorcise Kellee from my consciousness, but at least I could get rid of a painful reminder of her.

The staff at the Education library were in the process of closing up. The next day was Good Friday, and with so many students out of town, there was little reason to stay open. I recognized the young woman on the desk as an old student of mine, Susan something-or-other. Not smart, but pleasant, and very cute: a mop of curly hair, big brown eyes, and a quick smile. She made a face when she saw me.

“You’re not going to be long, are you? I’m hoping to get on the road before dark.”

“Going home?” I asked.

“You got it,” she said. “Three whole days with no texts, no assignments, and no research papers.”

“I won’t hold you up,” I said. “I’m just returning a book.” I slid the
Sleeping Beauty
across the desk to her.

She glanced at the cover. “I love fairy tales.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “Do you still believe in happy endings?”

“Depends on which day you ask me,” I said. “Today, I do.”

“Me too,” she said, and she took the book and started to place it on a trolley for re-shelving. Out of nowhere, Kellee’s face flashed into my mind.

“Susan,” I said. “That book wasn’t mine. Actually, I’m not sure who did take it out. Could you check to see whose card it’s on?”

She shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “That’s a real no-brainer – my specialty.” She punched something into the computer, watched the screen, and then turned to me with a grin. “Maybe we women aren’t the only ones who believe in happy endings. You’re not going to believe who checked this book out.”

“Who?”

“Marshall Hryniuk.”

“Jumbo?” I said.

“The Guzzler himself,” she said.

CHAPTER

10

That Easter weekend everything was eclipsed by my daughter Mieka’s news that she was expecting a baby in September. She and Greg had planned a dramatic announcement; they even brought down a bottle of Mumms so we could drink a toast to the future. But Mieka had never been good at secrets. Friday night, Greg had scarcely turned off the ignition when Mieka raced up our front walk, burst through the door, threw her arms around me and whispered, “How do you feel about being a grandma?”

Her trenchcoat was open, her dark blond hair was flying out of its careful French braid, and she had a milk moustache from the Dairy Queen shake she was still holding in her hand, but I knew I had never seen my daughter so happy. She was twenty-two. She had dropped out of university in the middle of her first year, taken the money Ian and I had set aside for her education and opened her own catering business. I’d fought her decision hard, and in the way of nettled parents everywhere, predicted that she’d rue the day, but her catering business in Saskatoon was thriving, her marriage was a happy one, and now she was joyfully pregnant.
She had every right to say “I told you so.” Luckily for both of us, Mieka had apparently decided to bite her tongue.

My son Peter was too thin and too pale, but I knew what the problem was, and I knew there was nothing I could do to help. From the time he was little, he had wanted to be a veterinarian, but he had no more aptitude for the sciences than his father or I had had. The genetic pool he needed to draw from to get a degree in vet medicine was shallow, but Peter was determined, and so year after year he soldiered away. I watched him grab a football and follow his brother outside for a game of pick-up and wished, not for the first time, that babies came with individual sets of instructions: “Teach this one to ease up on himself”; “Give this one the chance to find her own way.”

I didn’t need a set of instructions to understand Taylor’s problem that weekend. As talk about the new baby and about a past that she hadn’t been part of claimed our attention, Taylor became first clingy, then bratty. “Pay attention to me,” Angus said witheringly as his little sister whirled giddily around the table where Mieka and I were poring through a book of baby names.

We all tried to reach Taylor. Mieka showed her the kiska and dyes she’d brought from Saskatoon and offered to teach her how to make Ukrainian Easter eggs. Peter admired her art and told her that in the summer he’d help her transform the sunroom into a studio where she could get some serious painting done. Angus told her to shape up or ship out. Nothing seemed to help. Saturday night I awoke to discover Benny on my pillow with his purr mechanism on full throttle, and Taylor beside him, eyes filled with tears, lower lip trembling.

I stroked her hair. “T, can you tell me what the problem is?”

She made a sound that was half sob, half hiccup. “No,” she said, miserably.

I put my arms around her. “How about building a box and putting that problem in it till the morning?”

“It’ll still be there.”

“I know, but maybe spending a little time in a box will make it smaller.”

“Jo, would it be okay if I stayed here tonight?”

I kissed the top of her head. “Absolutely,” I said. “But you and I have a lot to do tomorrow, so you’re going to have to ask Benny to put a silencer on that purr of his.”

As it always does when life is at its best, the time went too quickly. Easter dinner was planned for mid-afternoon. Julie Gallagher arrived early with two mile-high lemon pies. She was wearing an outfit in jonquil silk, her hair was back in its careful coif, and her makeup was fresh. She looked like the old Julie, but there was uncertainty in her eyes, and as she followed me into the dining room her manner was diffident.

“I thought I’d come early, so I could give you a hand now and leave you and your family to visit after we’re through eating.”

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want to, Julie.”

She set the pies carefully on the sideboard. “I know that, and I appreciate it, believe me. But this is a family occasion, and I’m not family. I’m not even a friend.”

“You could be,” I said.

“Could I?” she asked. “You’d have to forget an awful lot, Joanne.”

“I’m fifty years old, Julie. My memory isn’t nearly as sharp as it used to be.”

She gave me a quick, dimpled smile. “Thank God for that,” she said. “Now what can I do to help?”

Julie was quiet during dinner, but it was obvious she was enjoying herself. Besides, we’d already had our conversation. When she’d arrived, the big kids were in the park with
Taylor, throwing around Frisbees. Julie and I had had twenty minutes alone together; oddly enough, we had used them to talk about love. Our conversation was surprisingly light-hearted, but one of Julie’s reminiscences was poignant. She told me that on their wedding night, Reed had said his greatest dream was to grow old with her. Then she had touched my arm and said how grateful she was to me for allowing her to believe again that when Reed died, that was still his greatest dream.

True to her word, Julie left early, but, as I watched her get into her car, for the first time since I’d known her I was sorry to see her go. Peter left early too. He had a lab test the next day, so he caught a ride back to Saskatoon with a friend as soon as we’d finished dessert. After Peter left, Greg started clearing the table.

“It’s been great, Jo.” he said. “But we’d better take off, too. Mieka’s got a lunch for fifty oil guys tomorrow, and I’ve got a squash game with a client at seven a.m.” He grimaced. “Sounds like a page out of Lifestyles of the Young and Upwardly Mobile, doesn’t it?”

“Store up those golden memories,” I said. “Come September, the oil guys and squash games are going to get nudged aside for a while.” I turned to my daughter. “Mieka, I can help Greg get organized for the trip back. Why don’t you drive over and tell Jill about the baby? I promised her you’d stop by. You don’t have to stay – just a quick flying trip.”

Jill’s apartment was on Robinson and 12th, an easy five-minute drive from my house, but even so, I was surprised at how quickly Mieka was back, and at how downcast she seemed.

“Nobody home?” I said.

She shook her head. “No, they were home. It just wasn’t a good time for a visit.” She slipped her coat off and sat down
at the kitchen table. “It was so weird. I knocked and knocked, but nobody answered. Finally, a man came to the door. He introduced himself as Tom Kelsoe, Jill’s boyfriend, and said she was sleeping. I guess Jill must have heard our voices. Anyway, she came out of the bedroom. Mum, she was a mess. Her face was all bruised and she could hardly talk because her jaw was swollen. She’d been mugged.”

“Mugged?” I repeated. “Is she all right?”

“You know Jill. She’s tough. She kind of laughed it off – said the most-lasting damage had been to her vanity.”

“But she
is
okay?”

“She says she is.”

“Where did it happen?”

“In the parking lot behind Nationtv. Jill was working late. One of the men on her show had offered to walk her to her car, but she turned him down. She says the mugger just appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed her shoulder bag. Apparently, Jill put up a fight, and that’s when she got hurt.”

“That doesn’t sound like Jill,” I said. “She always said if somebody was willing to risk jail for a purse full of old Cheezie bags and maxed-out credit cards, she wouldn’t stand in their way.”

“I guess no one can predict what she’ll do in a situation like that,” Mieka said. “I’m just grateful it didn’t happen to you, too. Tom Kelsoe said there’ve been several incidents in that parking lot lately. Apparently, there’s some sort of a gang – they’re after video equipment that they can pawn for drug money, but they’ll take anything.”

I was beginning to feel uneasy. “It’s odd that I’ve never heard a word about any of this,” I said.

Mieka gazed at me thoughtfully. “I guess all that matters is that Jill’s going to be all right.”

“Of course,” I said. “That
is
all that matters.” I started for the phone. “I’m going to call her.”

“Why don’t you wait?” Mieka said. “Tom wanted her to get some sleep. I volunteered your services, but he told me he had everything under control.” She rolled her eyes. “He said he was going to find the man who did this to Jill and beat him to a pulp. I must have looked kind of shocked, because he backtracked pretty quickly. When Jill asked me to stay for tea, Tom suddenly became Mr. Sensitive and said he’d make a pot of souchong.”

“Retribution and Chinese tea,” I said. “He certainly is the Renaissance man.”

The sterling flatware we’d used for dinner was on the kitchen table, clean and ready to be put back into the silver chest until what my old friend Hilda McCourt always called “the next high day or holy day.” Mieka began sorting through it, placing the pieces back where they belonged. “You don’t like Tom Kelsoe, do you?” she said finally.

“Not at all,” I said. “And he doesn’t like me. But I still think I should go over there.”

“Jill seemed fine, Mum. Honestly. And they made it pretty clear they didn’t want anybody else around.” Mieka aligned the salad forks carefully and dropped them into their slot in the chest. Then she gave me a sidelong glance. “Aren’t there times when you and Alex don’t want other people around?”

“What do Alex and I have to do with this?”

Mieka reached over and squeezed my hand. “Nothing,” she said. “But I’m leaving in ten minutes, and we haven’t talked about him all weekend. What’s going on there?”

“I told you,” I said. “Alex went up north for a few days.”

“But you two are still together?”

I didn’t answer her. Instead, I turned so I could look out the window into the back yard. Sadie and Rose were lying in what would soon be the tulip bed, catching the last rays of spring sunlight. They were old dogs now, fifteen and sixteen
respectively, and I felt a pang thinking about what inevitably lay ahead.

“Penny for your thoughts, Mum,” Mieka said.