this house?”
When we fell in love, Zack set himself the task of finding the perfect house for our family. His quest had not proven easy, but he’d been resolute, and, like all knights errant, in the end he triumphed. The house we decided on had been built in the 1960s, and it was solid enough to accommodate the retrofittings we needed and filled with enough space and light to please us all. The fact that our house had an indoor pool had sealed the deal. Taylor and I were committed swimmers, and after spending eighteen hours a day in a wheelchair, Zack needed exercise to give his cardiovascular system a workout, help control the spasms that harassed him, and just have fun. But the pool had been installed for therapeutic reasons and the area surrounding it was antiseptic, soulless, and depressing. It was a space in desperate need of transformation, and Taylor had thrown herself into the task.
Taylor’s birth mother had been my friend Sally Love, a painter whose work now routinely sold in the high six figures. Sally died when Taylor was only four, but from the moment I adopted her, I knew she had inherited her mother’s gift. Confronted with a space that was bare and ugly, Taylor made beauty: a mural depicting an underwater scene of swimmers – human, finned, and crustacean – that filled three walls and pulsed with colour and movement. The ceiling and the fourth wall were glass. Ed Mariani supplied a small forest of tropical plants; Taylor and I painted the wicker furniture that came with the house a shade of dusty rose the paint chart described as “azalea,” and we had a room that was a potent antidote to the grey months – just the ticket for a man whose frustration at navigating the snow and ice of a northern winter from a wheelchair spiked his blood pressure. Thirty minutes of laps unknotted Zack’s muscles, and twenty minutes with a chilled martini completed the job. Taylor’s mural and the moist gardenia-scented air were powerful restoratives, and that night they restored Ginny.
As soon as she came into the room, she collapsed on one of the wicker lounge chairs, kicked off her sandals, and flexed her feet. “It is so good to be away from all those eyes,” she said.
I lay back in the lounge chair next to hers. “You’re handling it well,” I said.
“Training,” she said. She raised the leg closest to me and began to rotate it from the hip. As she moved, the silk of her skirt fell back. She was wearing a string thong, but she was a woman at ease with her body and it was clear she took pleasure in experiencing its subtleties. “Athletes learn that personal victory means personal mastery,” she said. “You have to block out everything that gets in your way.”
“That can’t be easy,” I said.
“It isn’t,” she said. “But it can be done.” She switched legs; then, as the rain drummed on the glass above us, Canada’s latest infamous MP did hip rotations and talked about sports psychology.
“You have to clear your mind,” she said, and the measured cadences of her public voice disappeared. She sounded younger – both open and fervent. The words might have come from a training manual, but Ginny was a true believer. “You have to train yourself not to hear the noise or see the fans or feel the exhaustion or listen to that inner voice that tells you you’re going to fail.” For a beat she was silent. When she spoke, her tone was self- mocking. “Maybe instead of tuning out that inner voice, I should have listened to it. I really believed I’d become prime minister, Joanne. Looks like the only thing I’ll be remembered for now is being a dependable free-throw shooter.”
“There are worse things to be remembered for,” I said. “Drawing a foul is one of life’s most satisfying manifestations of justice. The other team gets punished, and you have a chance to rub salt in the wound by scoring free points.”
Ginny shot me a look of surprise. “You played basketball,” she said.
“Enthusiastically, but not well,” I said. “Mieka was really good, especially at sinking free shots.”
“Nothing feeds the ego like sinking a free shot,” she said. She dropped her leg and closed her eyes. “You stand on the line. The referee approaches. He bounces the ball to you. You line the seams up.” As she recreated the moment, her fingers splayed. Her hands were large and powerful, the nails unpainted and cut short. “Fingers spread over the ball. Focus. Bounce once, then twice. Breathe in slowly. Raise the ball up to your forehead, feel the balance of perfect form, elbow in line with the basket. Look at the top knot of the mesh and relax your chest. Breathe out slowly; your lungs are almost empty. The shot releases itself; your body knows what to do. Your legs and arms are in sync. The shot swishes dead centre and snaps the cord. Nobody can describe what a perfect shot sounds like, but when you’re a shooter it’s all you can hear.” Ginny’s voice was dreamy, but she was quick to shake off the memory and bring herself back to reality. “I’d give a lot to hear that sound right now.” She examined her hands with interest. “I’m going to lose, you know.”
I’d seen the campaign photograph of Ginny with her daughters. They were close to Taylor’s age: coltish girls with their mother’s long limbs, shoulder-length dark blonde hair, and the unfinished look some girls have on the cusp of adolescence. In an ideal world, Ginny and her daughters would be battling over whether the girls could get tattoos or pitch their sleeping bags outside the Centre of the Arts overnight to be first in line for tickets to hear a hot new band. There would be tears and a reconciliation made poignant by the awareness on both sides that, as C.P. Snow said, the love between a parent and a child is the only love that must grow towards separation. But Ginny’s custody battle had removed her from the ideal world, and as I glanced at her worn face, I knew the prospect of being legally severed from her daughters was taking its toll.
She hugged her legs to herself. “I could have made a difference,” she said.
“You still can,” I said. “Even if your ex-husband gets custody, you’ll have rights. Your daughters are growing up. There’s a lot you’ll be able to give them.”
Ginny levelled her gaze at me. She looked perplexed. “Em and Chloe don’t need anything from me. They’re smart and strong. Contrary to what you’ve undoubtedly heard, I’ve been a good parent. They’ll be fine if they end up with Jason.”
I was astounded. “If you don’t care about the custody, why are you going to court?”
Ginny’s slate-blue eyes were cool. “Because I have – or did have – political aspirations, and it would have been political suicide not to put up a fight for the girls.” She read my face. “Now, I’ve shocked you. Tell me something, Joanne. If I were a man, would you be shocked at what I just said?”
I stared at the tranquil water of our pool. “I wouldn’t give it a second thought,” I said. “I apologize.”
Ginny seemed amused. “My old coach used to say, ‘Don’t apologize. Do something.’ ”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do something. How would you feel about me helping you get your case in front of the public?”
She stiffened. “ ‘The Rise and Fall of Ginny Monaghan’? I don’t think so. There are enough people lining up to throw a handful of dirt on my political grave.”
“This wouldn’t be a sensational piece. Did you see that NationTV special on the religious right and the values war in Canadian politics?”
“One of my advisers made me watch it, but I’m glad I did. It was good. Fair, balanced, and I actually learned a few things.”
“That’s what I was hoping for,” I said. “I wrote it. And I’ve talked to the producer about doing some more specials along that line. She says we should pitch the shows as Issues for Dummies.”
“Never overestimate the intelligence of the voting public,” Ginny said.
“I’m hoping if we give viewers small nibbles at big questions, they might want to learn more.”
Ginny cocked her head. “And you think my story might give them a taste for more?”
“I’ve taught a graduate class in Women and Party Politics for the past five years. I have the research, but I could use a human face.”
“Or, even better, a human sacrifice,” Ginny said. “Well, why not? Nineteen days till E-Day. Follow me around, and you’ll be able to give the public some dynamite insights into the best prime minister Canada never had.” She smoothed her skirt, swung her legs off the lounge, and leaned towards me. “Consider me officially in, but no cameras, no tape recorders – just you and your notebook.”
Outside a car door slammed. Ginny stood up and stretched. “The men return,” she said. “Impeccable timing.”
When Sean came in with Zack, I didn’t encourage a visit. It was clear we’d all had enough. I told Ginny I’d see her the next day in court, then we said goodnight. After I closed the door, Zack shot me a quizzical look. “So what was that all about?”
“Ginny and I have struck a mutual assistance pact. I’m going to be inside her campaign for the next couple of weeks, and in return, I’ll use Ginny as my focus in that politics and women program I’m working on for NationTV.”
“So a good evening,” Zack said.
