tumbled out. “I’m sorry about Ethan’s mother, and I’m sorry that he couldn’t move to Ottawa with his dad, but I’m still glad I don’t have to see him every day.” She looked at me gloomily. “That was an awful thing to say, wasn’t it?”
“Not if it’s true,” I said.
“But Ethan’s so alone,” Taylor said.
“Maybe after a while, you can e-mail him.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t even want to think about him.”
Her vehemence shocked me. “Was it that bad, Taylor?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. She pushed her chair back. “I’m going up to my room. I need to talk to Isobel and Gracie.”
“I’ll call you when dinner’s ready,” I said.
She glanced back over her shoulder. “What are we having?”
“Something cheap, fast, and irresistible,” I said.
“You haven’t decided, right?”
“Right.”
It was close to five when Glenda came out of the family room. It was obvious she’d been crying, but she was composed and ready to talk. “The night my father died, I had a kind of breakdown – my psychiatrist called it a ‘psychiatric episode.’ I can’t remember anything that happened from the time I left the hospital to the time I woke up in my apartment the next morning. My doctor says it’s not that uncommon – that if there are too many assaults on the mind, it can just shut down – self-preservation, he says.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “Still, it must have been frightening.”
Glenda put her fingers to her temples. “It was terrifying. But just now, when I was listening to my father sing, it was as if he was right there in the room with me. We used to joke about being able to read each other’s minds. Hearing his voice again brought him close. I knew exactly what he’d say about my ‘psychiatric episode.’ ” Glenda straightened her spine so that her posture was like her father’s. “He’d say, ‘Kiddo, those were the worst hours of your life, why would you want to remember them?’ And he’s right. I have years of wonderful memories. Those are the times that matter.”
I followed Glenda into the front hall. She shrugged on her jacket, then bent to pick up her packages. “And now,” she said. “Back to what I laughingly call my life.”
“Glenda, why don’t you take the records with you?” I said.
She smiled. “I don’t have a record player.”
“Then take the record player too,” I said. “Zack and I are getting married soon. We’ll both have to leave things behind. I’d really like you to have the Sam and Bev collection.”
“In that case, I’ll take it – the whole kit and caboodle – as my dad would have said. And I’ll cherish them, Joanne. I promise you that.”
Zack was home at six o’clock on the button. Over our martinis, I filled him in on my afternoon with Glenda. Taylor was subdued at dinner, but she perked up when Zack asked her if she had any ideas for the bare, institutional walls of the room that housed the pool at our new home. As she started to float possibilities, the light came back into her eyes, and I thought, not for the first time, how lucky she was to have her art.
At eight, Zack finished his coffee and turned his chair towards the door. “Time to go,” he said.
“I thought you were going to cut back,” I said.
“I am,” he said. “I called McCudden this afternoon. If it’s okay with you, he’s going to convert that bedroom at the end of the hall into an office. That way, I’ll be able to work at home.”
“That doesn’t move the Statue of Liberty,” I said.
“Does it please you?”
“Yes,” I said. “It does. Apart from teaching and office hours, I can work at home too.”
“Better and better,” Zack said. “Okay, now I’ve really got to make tracks.”
“Is this a foretaste of what’s to come?” I said.
“Probably,” he said. “Are you all right with it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Are you all right with the fact that I have a full life of my own?”
His gaze was steady. “That’s another reason I love you,” he said.
Taylor and I were unloading the dishwasher when Howard Dowhanuik called. I asked him to hold till I moved to another room. When I picked up, I explained that I didn’t want Taylor to hear me talking about Kathryn Morrissey’s death.
Howard was gruff. “I’m not going to say anything to upset the apple cart. I just wanted you to know (a) that Margot Wright is a great choice for a lawyer, (b) that the cops were back this afternoon, and (c) that they took my fucking vacuum cleaner.”
“Thanks for the update,” I said.
“You’re welcome, but I wanted your opinion about that vacuum cleaner. Why would the cops take it?”
“I’m guessing they talked to your neighbours and discovered that in the eighteen months since you moved into your condo, you never had a fire. On Halloween night, smoke would have been billowing out of your chimney. Neighbours in condos tend to notice things like that. And the police probably took note of the fact that by the time they interviewed you early on the morning after Kathryn’s death, you had already vacuumed up the ashes from your
