“Have you heard from Alex lately?” I asked.
“How lately?” Angus said carefully, and in that moment I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me.
“Within the last few days,” I said. “Robert Hallam came out to the lake after lunch. He says Alex booked off work to attend to personal business, and he hasn’t come back.”
Angus looked away. “That doesn’t sound like Alex. He’s Mr. Reliable.”
“He is,” I agreed. “That’s why this unexplained absence is so puzzling.” I stepped closer. “People are predictable,” I said. “Take you, for instance. Whenever you answer a question with a question, I know you’re holding something back.”
The corners of Angus’s mouth twitched. Once again I’d found him out. “Is this important?” he asked.
“I think it may be,” I said. “So shall we start again? When was the last time you talked to Alex?”
He didn’t hesitate. “The Sunday you went to Saskatoon to see Mieka.”
“Did he just call you out of the blue?”
“No,” Angus said. “We’ve kept in touch.” He sighed.
“And you never told me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“How come?”
Angus was his father’s son, tall and dark, with an unruly forelock and an easy smile. But his eyes, grey-green and unreadable, were mine. His gaze didn’t waver. “Because I didn’t want to have this conversation,” he said. “But if you say it’s important, I guess we should.” He pointed to the tailgate. “Do you want to sit down?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Last year, just before New Year’s, I got into some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Drinking and driving.”
My stomach turned over. “Oh God, Angus, how many times have we talked about that?”
“A million. I was a mutt. Okay, I know, but that’s not the point. The point is I got pulled over in a spot check. I honestly thought I was all right. I’d eaten and I hadn’t had anything to drink for three hours, but I blew above. 04 – not that bad, but bad enough. The cop took my licence and got Leah to drive home.”
“Leah was with you.”
“And she was furious at herself, said she should have insisted on driving. We also had three people in the back who were really ripped, so the car smelled rank. That didn’t help matters. Anyway, when I got home I called Alex.”
“You didn’t ask him to intervene…?”
“Give me a little credit, Mum. The officer who pulled me over had been very clear about the consequences. I knew I’d lost my licence for a month and I knew I had to take a DUI class. But I was scared. I forgot to ask her if the charge was going to be on my record permanently. That’s why I called Alex. I just needed – I don’t know – reassurance, but Alex insisted on talking to me face to face.”
“Where was I when all this was going on?”
“Upstairs in bed.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“It was late.” Angus’s tone revealed his exasperation. “Really late. Mum, give me a break here. I was scared. I hadn’t had a chance to think through what had happened. I was hoping Alex would give me a piece of information that would sort of soften things when I talked to you.”
“But you never did talk to me.”
“Because Alex said you’d been through enough, and he was right. It hadn’t been that long since you two broke up. Then Aunt Jill was in all that trouble at Christmas. I knew you’d been gritting your teeth through the holidays. I didn’t think you needed me barrelling in to tell you I’d been arrested and your ex-boyfriend had come over to take me to Mr. Bean for coffee.”
“Nice summation,” I said. “And put that way, it sounds as if you were right. So what did you and Alex talk about?”
Angus shrugged. “Mostly about how people have to be careful about the decisions they make, because everything a person does stays with him. Pretty much what you would have said.”
“That is pretty much what I would have said,” I agreed. “I wonder why Alex felt he had to be the one to say it.”
“You’re angry,” Angus said.
“A little,” I said. “I wish Alex practised what he preached. He made a decision; he should have been prepared to accept the consequences.”
“Not being part of your life meant he shouldn’t be part of mine?” I could hear the resentment in my son’s voice.
“Angus, I’m not the bad guy here. It was Alex’s choice. He was the one who walked away. I wanted us to stay together.”
“He wanted that, too, Mum. You wouldn’t be so harsh if you’d seen him the night I lost my licence. Alex has always been on top of things. When he came to drive me to Mr. Bean, he looked beaten down. And all the time that he kept talking about decisions and dragging everything along with you, it wasn’t like a lecture. It was as if he was talking about himself.”
“Angus…”
“Mum, let me finish… please. The day after Chris Altieri died, it was worse. Alex just kept looking at me. It was bugging me so I asked him to stop. He apologized, then he said he had to convince himself that I was okay.”
“He was a day late and a dollar short there, wasn’t he?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if Alex had been concerned about our family, he could have called, and he didn’t. Not once in all the months after he left.”
“He wanted to, Mum.”
“Then why didn’t he pick up the phone?”
“I don’t know,” Angus said miserably. “All I know is, the day after Chris died, Alex told me that the best time of his life was his time with us, and he’d do anything to keep us from grief. Do you have any idea what he was talking about?”
“No,” I said. “Maybe some day, when everyone’s feeling less fragile, we can talk about it.”
“That’d be good,” Angus said.
“I agree,” I said. “Now, reassure me. You really have learned not to get behind the wheel when you’ve had a drink?”
“I’ve learned,” Angus said. “That DUI course I took sealed it. I made friends with this guy named Pedro who got picked up on his birthday. He was so drunk from his party that he doesn’t remember getting behind the wheel. Wouldn’t want to run into Pedro on the highway. Lots of other scary stories. We got treated like infants for the whole weekend, but we deserved it. Oh yeah, the guy who was my DUI instructor was also the guy who took me out for my driver’s test. How about that?”
“Cosmic irony,” I said. “So is the charge going to be permanently on your licence?”
“Nope,” Angus said. “I was lucky. Didn’t run into Pedro. Didn’t hurt anybody else. Nothing on my record permanently. Horseshoes up my ass but I’m not going to push it.”
“Good,” I said. “I’ll sleep better knowing that.” Then I put my arms around my son and, despite the gawkers in the cars going by, I held him close for a long time.
There was a message on my cellphone when I got back to the cottage. It was Maggie Niewinski. I called her back.
She sounded breathless. “Glad you caught me,” she said. “I was just on my way downtown.”
“Shall I call later?”
Maggie laughed. “No, I’m not due in court for an hour. I thought, since I was in Regina, I’d check out the sales. I was just calling to bring you up to speed.”
“Have you found something out?”
