“So do I,” Henry said. “And Gina wishes I’d cut back on mine. But leopards can’t change their spots. We are as we are.”
It was too early to take the prescriptions to be filled at our druggist in River Heights, so I poured a glass of orange juice and went into the bedroom.
Zack was lying on his back. His BlackBerry was within easy reach on his nightstand, but he wasn’t thumbing it – not a good sign.
When he heard me come in, he turned his head towards me. “Did Henry tell you you’re an alarmist?”
I sat on the bed beside him. “Do you think I’d tell you if he had?” I said. “He gave me some prescriptions to get filled and, on my own initiative, I’ve decided to make chicken soup – the real kind, with feet in it.”
“Actually, that sounds pretty good.”
“You’re also confined to quarters for the foreseeable future.”
Zack reached out and took my hand. “As long as you’re here, I can live with that.”
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m going to have to call about a dozen people and tell them we can’t make their Christmas parties this week. We had two parties tonight alone – and it’s only Monday.”
“Disappointed?”
“Are you kidding? I’m thanking my lucky stars. No pantyhose to struggle into; no crab dip with a dubious heritage; no eggnog that’s been sitting out too long; no trotting out the conversational gambit I picked up forty years ago from
“What’s
“It’s a booklet girls used to send away for when they got their first period. It was distributed by a company that produced sanitary napkins and it was filled with useful advice about menstruation and dating.”
“Pretty much covered the gamut, huh?”
“Pretty much. I’ve forgotten most of the advice except that when a girl is on a date she should never tell a boy about her interests; she should always just ask him about his interests.”
“Did it work?”
I held out my left hand and pointed to my wedding ring. “Worked for me.” I kissed his forehead. “Go back to sleep.”
When I went back to the kitchen, Taylor was leaning over the sink eating her new favourite breakfast: a crumpet dripping with butter.
“Eating over the sink gives you warts,” I said.
She swallowed. “This is worth it.” She wiped the glisten off her chin. “Hey, was somebody here earlier or was I dreaming?”
“You weren’t dreaming,” I said. “Henry Chan came over to check out your dad.”
The fun went out of Taylor’s face. “He’s all right, isn’t he?”
“It’s just the flu,” I said. “But being in a wheelchair complicates things, so I worry – you know me.”
She nodded, finished her crumpet, and rinsed her hands. “Can I go see him?”
“Of course,” I said. “Seeing you always makes him happy.”
“I hate it when anybody in this family gets sick,” Taylor said. “It scares me.”
“Me too,” I said. “Now you’d better get a move on. Only two more days of school before the holidays. You don’t want to be late.”
She glanced at her watch. “Whoops. Can I borrow $5.00 please? We’re supposed to chip in for flowers for Ms. Perdue. She broke her foot doing her improv routine during chapel Friday.” Taylor brightened. “But before she broke her foot, she raised $231 for the Christmas fund.”
“There’s always a silver lining,” I said.
My purse was on the telephone table, and I found a five-dollar bill in my wallet. When Taylor came back from seeing Zack, I handed her the money. She gave me a quick hug, and I breathed in the scent of rosemary from the organic shampoo she favoured this month.
“I told Dad I love him,” she said. “I love you, too, Jo.”
For the hundredth time, I noticed – and was angry at myself for noticing – that Zack, who had been in Taylor’s life for two years, was “Dad” and that I, who had been in her life for ten years, was still, except for an occasional slip, “Jo.” I knew my daughter loved me as deeply as I loved her, but somewhere deep in Taylor’s psyche, the word mother still meant Sally.
I took the Christmas card Alwyn had given me from my purse, and looked again at the picture inside the holiday frame. For her entire life Abby had enjoyed a close and loving relationship with the man and woman she believed were her biological parents. Discovering the truth, that her birth mother was a stranger and that her father was a question mark, would have been a shock, but no matter how I looked at it, I could not convince myself that the revelation would have caused Abby to give away her child.
I was still, as my grandmother would have said, “in a brown study,” when Myra Brokaw called. I had problems of my own, but I sat down and prepared to hear her out. With luck and care, Zack would be his old self in a week or so; Myra’s husband would never recover.
“I know it’s early,” she said. “But I wanted to plead my case one more time before you made a final decision about Theo’s role in your program about the Supreme Court.”
“Myra, it’s not my program, and I don’t make the decisions. NationTV decides whether or not a particular show is worth doing, and if they green-light the show, my friend Jill Oziowy produces it. My connection is tangential. The series, such as it is, came out of an idea I had about making some of the institutions that affect our lives more understandable to the general public. I’ve done some research and some writing, but that’s the extent of my involvement. I suggested Justice Brokaw because he was from Saskatchewan, and I’d read in the paper that he was retiring here. I thought explaining the workings of the Court to a lay audience might be an interesting project for both of us, but it was just an idea. Nothing was set in stone.”
“But it’s a fine idea,” Myra said and her voice was fervent. “The challenge is how best to bring the idea to life. My suggestion that an actor read from Theo’s judgments simply won’t work. For television, you need to involve the eye. And we can do that, Joanne.”
When I didn’t ask how we could involve the eye, Myra sensed my interest waning and hurried on. “Whenever Theo was interviewed for television, I made certain we got a copy of the tape, so I have all his public utterances, neatly catalogued. And even better, I filmed him frequently myself. He had such a brilliant legal mind. I knew I was part of something significant that could not be lost. I had an obligation.”
“Myra, I don’t think… ”
“Joanne, please just look at the films. They’re family films, of course. They show the man himself, but they offer so much more. Theo sitting on the dock at our cottage talking about how knowledge of art and literature places the law into context. And footage of him wandering the corridors of the Court at night alone, pondering a judgment. And he did this lovely thing – every year, he and his students went skating on the Rideau Canal. He’s a fine skater and I have film of that, and there’s always an inspiring sequence at the end where Theo and his students sit on a bench by the canal drinking cocoa, and Theo explains how the law is like skating – push, glide, push, glide. A time for assertion, a time for reflection. Such a precise metaphor. I want people to remember him.”
“People do remember him, Myra,” I said. “When we were first contemplating this show, I talked to people in the legal community – not just here in Saskatchewan but throughout Canada. They hold Theo in very high regard. They know he was a fine jurist and scholar.”
“So they’ve already written his eulogy,” Myra said, and her laugh was bitter. “Robert Frost was right. ‘No memory of having starred/Atones for later disregard,/Or keeps the end from being hard.’ ”
Her pain was as palpable as her love for her husband.
CHAPTER 10
After I’d found my old friend Helen Freedman’s handwritten recipe for “Harvey Calls It ‘Jewish Penicillin’ Chicken Soup” I made a list of the ingredients I’d need and called Mieka.
“How’s everyone in your kingdom this morning?” I said.
“The girls are bouncing off the walls. I’m doing as well as can be expected this close to Christmas. How about
