Chris was simply exhausted, but I was relieved when he appeared in the gazebo that night after the barbecue.
His eyes were anxious. “Your daughter told me where I could find you. I hope you don’t mind me following you out here.”
“I don’t mind,” I said.
The corners of his mouth twitched towards a smile. “Your daughter said you had come to the gazebo to straighten up.”
“Taylor’s not known for her discretion,” I said. “I was suffering from too much sun and too much wine. Nobody to blame but myself.”
“So you’re not perfect,” Chris said.
“Not even close,” I said.
Chris inhaled deeply. “That makes it easier,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry I was such a jerk today.”
“It was pretty clear there was more on your mind than tennis.”
“Thanks, but absolution shouldn’t come that easily. I hope you’ll give me a chance to make amends.” He offered his hand. When I took it, I felt the thrum of connection. Apparently, Chris Altieri did too. Before he withdrew his hand, he pressed mine. “Kevin said you’d be a good person to talk to.”
“When were you talking to Kevin?”
“Tonight when you were all having dinner.”
“He found a phone on Mount Kailas?”
Chris offered another of his disarmingly sweet smiles. “Actually, he was in Delhi. We agreed years ago that somehow we’d always make it to the Falconer Shreve Canada Day party. Kevin may have had to phone it in today, but he still gets marked present.” Chris gazed at the party across the water. “For us, this is holy ground,” he said.
The scene was seductive. A small band had been hired to smooth the transition from the barbecue to the fireworks, and the music evoked a Proustian rush of memories of other summers. People were dancing along the shoreline, and their silhouettes, thrown into sharp relief by the blaze of a bonfire, were dreamily romantic. The lights strung across the branches of the willows had been arranged so artfully that their twinkling seemed a natural phenomenon, like the pinpoint illumination of fireflies.
It was impossible not to feel the crystalline beauty of the moment. “It is lovely,” I said.
“Don’t forget the people,” Chris said. “No matter what you’ve heard, they’re the best.”
“Worthy members of the Winners’ Circle?” I asked.
He lowered his head in embarrassment. “Sophomoric, huh?”
“Kevin tells me you got together at the end of your first week in law school. Your sophomore year wasn’t that far behind you.”
“We were young,” Chris agreed. “Zack Shreve was only twenty. He’d blazed through his undergraduate degree. He was the baby – although given what he’s become, it’s hard to believe he was ever a self-conscious kid.”
“I sat with him at the barbecue,” I said. “It was a rush meeting him face to face. Until today, he was just someone I’d seen on the news – Zachary Shreve, defender of the defenceless.”
“The media love him,” Chris said dryly. “Don Quixote in a wheelchair. But Zack doesn’t waste his time tilting at windmills. He chooses cases he can win, and when the little guy gets a big settlement, Zack gets a big cheque.”
“Big cheques benefit all the partners, don’t they?”
“Our bank accounts, yes. Our immortal souls? Not necessarily.”
“You disapprove of what Zack does.”
He shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I don’t love him. I love them all. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have cut short my trip to Japan so I could be here today.”
“That is devotion,” I said. “So what took you to Japan?”
“I was on a pilgrimage,” he said, and his voice was flat. It was impossible to tell if the comment was ironic.
“It seems to be the summer for racking up good karma,” I said. “You and Kevin both.”
“Maybe we should have inquired about a group rate,” he said.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I asked.
He hesitated. “No,” he said finally. Somewhere close to shore a fish jumped. “Isn’t it amazing how even when things are at their worst, there are reminders of the goodness of life?” The sentiment was celebratory, but in the sinking light, Chris’s face was haunted.
“Is it that bad for you?” I said.
Chris didn’t respond. Seemingly, he was absorbed in the lustre of the roses floating in the low bowl at the centre of the table. “I’ve always been graced,” he said. “Now the grace has been withdrawn. When I told Kevin that tonight, he said I should talk to a priest, but I can’t do that and I can’t talk to my partners.”
“So Kevin suggested you talk to me,” I said.
“If you don’t mind,” Chris said.
“I don’t mind.” I leaned towards him. “Chris, why do you think the grace has been withdrawn from your life?”
“Because I’ve sinned.” This time there was no mistaking his tone. He was clearly suffering.
I turned my attention to the roses and waited.
Christopher tented his fingers thoughtfully. “Kevin says you’re not judgemental.”
I smiled. “That must be why he gave me a break on the rent.”
“Must be.” Chris’s face grew grave. “Let’s test your limits. Has anyone you loved ever had an abortion?”
The question shattered the perfection of the evening. “No one I loved,” I said finally, “but women I was close to. My roommate in college, other friends. I know the wound goes deep.”
“Does it ever heal?” he said.
“Truthfully? I don’t know.”
Chris turned to face me. We were so close, I could smell the liquor on his breath. It hadn’t occurred to me that his confessional moment had been fuelled by alcohol. He wasn’t drunk, but he was unguarded. “I was with a woman,” he said. “She became pregnant with our child… with what would have been our child.”
“She had an abortion,” I said.
“She had an abortion because of me,” he corrected.
“You forced her?”
Pain flickered across his face. “I gave her no option.”
“But afterwards you had second thoughts,” I said.
“It was beyond that. I was mourning something…” He extended his hands palms up in a gesture of helplessness. “I just wasn’t sure what it was.”
“And that’s why you went on the pilgrimage.”
He nodded. “I’d joined this chat room on the Internet. It was for people like me who couldn’t deal with how they felt after an abortion. One night someone mentioned an article in an old New York Times Magazine by a woman who’d suffered a miscarriage while she was in Tokyo. She went through hell, but finally she found an answer. She discovered the Japanese have a name for a child that’s lost before birth. They call it mizuko, ‘water child,’ because it’s a being who is still flowing into our world.”
“A beautiful image,” I said.
“And an acknowledgement that what was lost was real,” Chris said quietly. “There’s an enlightened being, Jizo, who watches over the mizukos. The article mentioned a Buddhist temple in Tokyo where they performed Jizo rituals.”
“And you went there.”
Chris’s face grew soft with memory. “It was incredible, Joanne. Rows and rows of tiny stone statues of mizukos. Their features were so perfect. Most of them were wearing little red caps that their mothers had crocheted for them. They’d left presents for their unborn children too – toys and bags of candy. The article said gifts were the custom, so I left a little truck for my mizuko with his statue.” Chris’s voice broke. “I said a prayer, then I left a letter telling him I was sorry and that I hoped he’d find another pathway into being.”
The warm summer air was vibrating with the hum of crickets and the wishing star had appeared in the
