I fetched Myra’s package and we watched the DVD she’d had made from the movies shot the year Delia clerked for Theo. Most of the footage was of Theo thinking aloud about decisions he was about to make. Dry stuff, but Myra knew how to bring her husband’s legal ponderings to life by placing him in compelling settings: beside a rushing river on a soft green spring day; atop a ski slope in the Laurentians; strolling alone along a shadowy deserted corridor in the Supreme Court.
“Always alone,” Zack intoned theatrically, “except, of course, for his ever-present wife with her ever-present camera. Boy, talk about ego. I can’t imagine you taking pictures of me wrestling with my conscience.”
“The temptation’s there,” I said. “A lot of lawyers in this town would pay serious money to see if you
Zack laughed, which of course set off another coughing attack. When it was through, he closed his eyes. “Watching this crap is getting us nowhere,” he said. “Myra obviously didn’t send over the X-rated version. Let’s turn it off, and watch the rest when Delia comes.”
“Wait,” I said. “Here comes the skating.”
There was an establishing shot of the frozen Rideau Canal. Then the camera zoomed in on a man and woman skating. He was tall and confident of his prowess; she was petite and moved tentatively. They weren’t touching, but they moved in perfect harmony, and they turned and began to skate towards the camera at precisely the same moment. “Hold on,” I said.
As the man and woman locked eyes, the person behind the camera froze the shot. Even twenty-seven years later, the heat between the lovers was palpable.
We watched to the end of the sequence. As Theo delivered his familiar push-glide speech, Delia’s eyes never left his face.
Zack clicked off the DVD. “So now we know,” he said.
“It was a long time ago,” I said. “By now, it’s probably ancient history for both of them.”
“I’m not sure it is for Dee,” Zack said. “On that fated day when I had to decide between buying you a toothbrush or getting a new Jaguar, I went to Delia for advice. To be honest, the reason I chose her was because I was certain she’d tell me I should bid you sayonara, but she surprised me. She told me I should go back to you. She said that otherwise, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering.”
“And you think that’s what happened to Delia?”
“I do. She and Noah were married the week after she came back from Ottawa. The marriage came out of the blue. Everyone was shocked, and nobody was more shocked than Noah. I was best man at their wedding. Noah looked like a guy who’d won the big prize in a lottery he didn’t know he’d bought a ticket for.”
“And you think Delia’s been wondering ever since?”
“I guess we’re about to find that out.”
Before Delia arrived, I gave Zack a sponge bath, helped him into fresh pyjamas, changed the sheets, tucked the prescription drugs out of sight, then began removing some of the flowers that had been delivered.
“You don’t have to do that,” Zack said.
“You said the place looked like Walmart.”
“It was just an observation,” he said. “Come sit next to me for a minute.”
I went over, lay on the bed beside him, and slipped my hand under his pyjama top onto his chest.
“This is more than I asked for,” Zack said.
“And it’s only the beginning,” I said.
For an evening designed to elicit a revelation, Delia’s visit was surprisingly without fireworks. When I showed her into our room, she went straight to Zack and embraced him. “I’m so sorry,” she said gently.
He patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, Dee. It’ll work out.”
“I hope so,” she said. She glanced around the room. I’d left the curtains open so we could see the night sky. The snow outside the window was blue-white, and on the low table in front of the window the three copper pots with their deep red poinsettias glowed. The room was very quiet. “It’s so peaceful here,” Delia said.
She was all in black, her face was pale and drawn, and as she pulled a chair close to the bed, she moved with her characteristic taut intensity. “Might as well get this over with,” she said.
“You don’t have to watch the movies, Dee,” Zack said.
Delia picked up the remote. “I’ve ducked this long enough,” she said, and she hit power.
I’d taken the DVD back to the beginning. As Theo came on screen looking as he had twenty-seven years ago, Delia’s face grew soft.
Zack had been watching his partner, but he dropped his eyes at her show of emotion. Then his eyes shifted to the screen.
We watched in silence till the sequence on the canal was over.
“That’s it,” I said.
“I thought he was the sun and the moon and the stars,” Delia said. “I was very young.” Her husky voice broke in its strangely adolescent-boy way.
“Dee, the point of showing you the movie wasn’t to make you miserable,” Zack said. “It was to find out everything we could about the circumstances surrounding Abby Michaels’s birth.”
Delia shrugged her slender shoulders. “It’s the old sad story. I fell in love with Theo. He said he loved me. I thought he’d leave his wife. He said he wanted to be with me, but that Myra had invested everything in him, and I had my life ahead of me. Case closed.”
“Did you tell him about the baby?” I asked.
Delia shook her head. “No. Eventually, of course, he must have realized I was pregnant, but he never mentioned it, and neither did I.”
“He never asked if the baby was his?” I said. “I would have thought… ”
“To be fair, by the time news of my pregnancy made the rounds in the Supreme Court Building, Theo had every reason to believe the baby wasn’t his.”
“What happened?” I said.
“Someone started a rumour that I’d been screwing pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down. A kind soul told me she’d been at a drinking party where they narrowed the list of potential fathers down to five and everybody voted.”
“Jesus,” Zack said.
“Welcome to the world of women,” I said, and Delia shot me a grateful glance.
“Anyway,” she said, “I appeared before the Court many times over the years, but, quite correctly, there was no acknowledgement from Theo that he knew me.”
“He never made any attempt at a personal connection?” Zack asked.
“No, nor did I. Come on, Zack, you know the rules. Anything like that would have been highly unethical and it might have compromised a client, so Theo and I soldiered on, protected by the anonymity of our robes: just another justice; just another barrister. And it would have continued that way if it hadn’t been for Abby’s letter.”
“But you did tell Theo that Abby was his daughter?” Zack said.
“I took the coward’s way out,” Delia said. “I wrote to him. I knew he’d retired suddenly and moved back here. He was no longer a judge, so that particular barrier to communication had been removed, but to be frank I didn’t want to face him. I didn’t know how he’d react. Anyway, I sent him a letter setting out the facts. I relayed Abby’s request and told him that he could do as he wished, but that I thought it was fair to convey the medical information his biological daughter requested, and I believed her when she said she had no wish to have further contact with either of us.”
“Did you get a response?” Zack said.
“I did. One line typed on monogrammed stationery. ‘The matter has been taken care of,’ and then Theo’s initals, ‘T.N.B.’ ”
“Were the initials typed or handwritten?” Zack asked.
“Handwritten,” Delia said. “I should have just let it go, but the ambiguity was unsettling. I decided to arrange a face-to-face meeting. I wrote a note addressed to Theo and Myra. I said I understood they had moved back to Regina and that Noah and I were having a gathering on December 5. There would be people there whom they would find congenial, and we’d be delighted if they could join us. I gave them my contact information, and I received an e-mail accepting the invitation.”
“Was the e-mail from Theo or Myra?” Zack asked.
