you?”
“Zack has the flu.”
“Bad?”
“Bad enough for me to call Henry Chan. He says to keep an eye on it.”
“Anything I can do?”
“I’m in a soup-making mood,” I said. “If you could pick up a stewing chicken and whatever vegetables look good and drop them by before you go to work, I’d be grateful.”
“Done,” she said. “You don’t have to take the girls skate shopping after school, you know.”
“I’d forgotten all about it,” I said. “Age.”
“You’ve had a few things on your mind,” Mieka said.
“Thanks, but the girls have been talking about getting their new skates for a week. More significantly, the skates are from Pete and Angus, and they’ve already given me the money.”
Mieka chortled. “Shrewd move to get Angus to pony up ahead of time. He still owes me for ten years of Mother’s Day presents.”
“Slip him the bill when he graduates. Anyway, let me talk to Zack about the skate shopping. My guess is that he won’t be happy if he thinks the ladies missed out on something because of him. Besides, Taylor will be home from school by the time I have to leave. We can work it out.”
I opened my appointment calendar by the kitchen phone. Sure enough, the girls were pencilled in for skate shopping at three-thirty. There was a luncheon at the university that had also slipped my mind, and Zack and I had a client’s party at five and another, in the same hotel, at six. I called the university and the clients’ offices and left regrets. I glanced at the rest of the week, and slumped. Each day seemed black with commitments. Too much. Then I thought of Theo Brokaw thanking me for visiting because “not many do” and felt a pang for complaining about the abundance of my life.
As penance, I got out the lemon oil and began to polish the sideboard above which we’d hung the pomegranate wreath Myra had crafted. Polishing was the kind of job I enjoyed – mindless and instantly gratifying. I’d just finished when Nadine Perrault called.
Her voice was strong and calm. “Alwyn and I had coffee today and she suggested I get in touch with you. She said you’d be pleased to know that I’m continuing to make progress.”
“That is good news,” I said.
“For me, too,” she said, and with an openness that I found appealing. “For weeks now I’ve felt as if I was sitting in front of a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces were scattered all around me. I knew if I put them together I’d see the truth. But I was so afraid of what the final picture would be that I couldn’t make myself pick up the pieces.”
“Now you’re not afraid.”
“No. Because I know that Abby loved me, and that makes all the difference. I’m going to find out what happened to her, Joanne. I’m coming to Regina. Obviously, the explanation for Abby’s actions is tied somehow to Delia Wainberg. I’ve hired a Regina lawyer. His name is Darryl Colby. Do you know him?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “But I’m sure Zack will. Do you want Zack to get in touch with him?”
“Not until Mr. Colby and I have had a chance to talk. I’ve asked him to hire an investigator. I have to learn what convinced Abby that she could no longer survive our life together. No matter how painful the answers.”
“Zack always says it’s better to know than not know.”
“The truth shall set me free?”
“Or at least make it easier for you to sleep nights,” I said.
Nadine’s laugh was shadowed with irony. “I’d settle for that.”
When I placed the cordless phone back in its charger, I thought about Nadine and, oddly, about Myra. It was difficult to imagine two more different women, but they were embarking on parallel journeys: Nadine, coming to a distant prairie city to discover why the partner she loved had turned into a stranger; Myra, moving to a city where she was a stranger, to mine her husband’s archives and recover the man she had revered for forty years. Seemingly, when it came to doling out hope and heartbreak, life was remarkably even-handed.
Zack was stirring when I went into our room to check on him. I sat on the bed beside him and felt his forehead.
“Well?” he said.
“Still warm.”
“How come you don’t use a thermometer?”
“I don’t need one,” I said. “Thermometers make you crazy. Touching works just as well, and it lets you feel things a thermometer can’t measure.”
“Such as?”
“Such as whether the patient is glad to have your hand on his forehead.”
“I’m glad,” Zack said. “I’d be glad if you just sat there all day.”
“That’s exactly what I’m planning to do except I promised Madeleine and Lena I’d take them skate shopping after school. Taylor will be home. Do you think you’d be okay for an hour?”
“Sure. The girls need skates and I never tire of Taylor’s updates on Declan.” Zack took my hand in his. “Anything happening in the big world?”
“Nadine Perrault called. She’s coming to Regina.”
“Not welcome news, but hardly surprising,” Zack said. “Should I gird my loins?”
“I don’t think so. Nadine’s pretty open about what she wants. Ultimately, she wants Jacob, but she told me today her immediate need is to find out what made Abby believe she could no longer survive the life she and Nadine shared.”
Zack winced. “That’s a phrase that will stick.”
“The phrase is Nadine’s,” I said. “And it will stay with me too. It’s hard to fathom what could make a woman as gifted and strong as Abby turn her back on everything that mattered to her. And if it’s hard for us to understand, can you imagine what it’s like for Nadine? Anyway, logically enough, she thinks the answers must be here, and she’s hired a Regina lawyer.”
“Who’d she get?”
“His name is Darryl Colby.”
Zack scowled. “Interesting choice.”
“Do I know him?”
Zack shifted his position and groaned. “You met him at the Bar Association Christmas party.”
“The one with the big booming bass who sang ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’? He seemed like a lot of fun.”
“Don’t let that big booming bass disarm you, Ms. Shreve. Darryl is, in the immortal words of Dr. Seuss, as cuddly as a cactus and as charming as an eel.” He also appears to have misplaced his conscience somewhere along the line.” Zack pushed himself so he was lying on his side.
“Better?” I asked.
“Nope. I still feel like homemade shit.”
“Let me try something,” I fluffed up the extra pillows on the bed, brought them over to Zack’s side, and positioned them against his back. “How’s that?”
“Good,” he said.
I smoothed Zack’s covers. “Darryl Colby doesn’t seem like the kind of lawyer Nadine would choose.”
“Putz Llewellyn probably recommended him. Guys like that have a network. They slither out of the same eels’ nest.” Zack heaved a mighty sigh. “I’m through talking, Jo. I’m dead.” Within seconds, he was asleep.
I brought in the newspaper and sat in the chair by the window. It wasn’t long before Zack half-opened his eyes. “That wasn’t much of a nap,” I said. “Can I get you anything?”
“Water?”
I poured some from the Thermos and helped him into a sitting position. Zack drank thirstily and then lay back on his pillow. “I was dreaming about eels,” he said.
“That’s because before you drifted off we were talking about Darryl Colby.”
“Shit. I was hoping that was just part of the dream.” Zack narrowed his eyes. “So Colby really is Nadine’s lawyer.”
