to realize that a behaviour that was worrying them is perfectly normal.”
Mieka’s excitement about the project was infectious. “So is this an idea you and Lisa are just kicking around or has it gone further?”
“We’ve drafted a business plan, and we’ve found the property we want. Remember that old school-supply shop on 4th Avenue?”
“Markesteyn’s?”
“That’s the one. It has a big warehouse area in the back, so it would be perfect for us. And Lisa’s brother’s an engineer. He’s checked out the building. He says it’s solid.”
“Good buildings don’t come cheap.”
“We’re working on that.”
“Zack knows people with deep pockets. Maybe you should talk to him.”
“He’s been pretty sick. I don’t want to rush him.”
“Neither do I, but this is exactly the kind of project he’d enjoy. Just wait a couple of days till he’s back to normal. Actually, it might be something he and I could work on together.”
Mieka rubbed her hands together gleefully. “Let’s talk about it. As you probably noticed, I’m pretty stoked about this.”
“I noticed,” I said. “And it makes me very happy. Now, why don’t you buy a potential investor a cup of coffee?”
“My pleasure,” Mieka said. “By the way, you just missed Nadine.”
“She was here?” I said.
Mieka nodded. “She wasn’t here long.”
“How did she seem? Noah was at the house when I left. He was concerned about her state of mind.”
The timer on the oven clock began to buzz. “The muffins are ready,” Mieka said. “Give me three minutes to get them out on the counter, then we can really talk.”
I poured myself a mug of coffee, stood by the counter and looked around the room. The demographic of UpSlideDown intrigued me. A disproportionate number of the women were pregnant; most appeared affluent, and all were young. The men wore jeans, carried computer notebooks, and, without exception, were writing novels or screenplays.
It wasn’t long before Mieka rejoined me. “To answer your question,” she said, “Nadine seemed sad, but calm. When she came in, she did what Abby always did: ordered a latte, sat where Abby always sat, and nibbled at a piece of pastry and watched the kids playing. When I asked if I could join her, she seemed happy to have company.”
“I imagine she wanted to talk about Abby.”
“She did,” Mieka said. “And there wasn’t much I could tell her. The only real conversational possibility I ever had with Abby was when she asked me how I could reconcile faith in God with the cruelties of the world. I blew it, and the next night she was dead.”
“Did you tell Nadine about Abby’s question?”
“No. Once in a while, I actually exercise good judgment. You told me that Nadine was finding comfort in her faith, so I thought it would be kinder not to tell her that the woman she loved had stopped believing.” Mieka picked up a paper napkin and dabbed absently at a small spill on the counter. “The only safe topic I could think of was child development. Nadine was fascinated by how much Jacob has learned since she last saw him, so she asked about what babies his age can normally do. Of course, that’s the one subject upon which I’m an expert.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “You’re one of the smartest women I know.”
“When I’m in my own small garden,” Mieka said sardonically. “Anyway, I was babbling about the varying rates at which children develop skills, when Lisa came in. At first everything was fine. I introduced Lisa and Nadine. Lisa, who knew nothing about Nadine’s circumstances, started asking the usual questions we ask people on their first visit to Regina in winter.
“Nadine was cordial, but they didn’t talk long. Lisa had errands to do, so she told Nadine she hoped she’d enjoy her time here, then gave me the package she’d dropped by to return. You’ll be interested in this, Mum. People who brought gifts here for Core Rec were supposed to pencil in the age and gender of the child for whom the gift was intended. But one of the gifts had a tag with Delia Wainberg’s name on it.”
“I’m assuming it was from Abby.”
“Yes,” Mieka said. “After Lisa told us about the tag, Nadine asked if she could look at the gift. She recognized Abby’s handwriting and said she’d like to be alone for a while. Lisa and I took off, and that’s when you came in. When Lisa left, I looked over to see how Nadine was doing, but she was gone.” Mieka pointed to the table. “The gift is still there.”
We went over to the table where Nadine had been sitting. Nadine’s latte was still half-full and the gift, a book in which a parent records the highlights of a baby’s first year, lay beside it.
I picked up the baby book. Bound in navy leather, its design was clean and handsome. Except for Jacob’s full name and his date of birth hand-lettered in copperplate, the cover was unadorned. The heavy vellum pages inside were equally chaste. The first page, in the same copperplate hand, recorded Jacob’s time and date of birth, his birth weight and length, and the fact that he had been born at home, in the cabin that Abby shared with Nadine. I remembered the warmth of its living room, the quilts on the walls, the sound of the river flowing past. It would have been a gentle place for a child to enter the world.
I turned to the second page and felt a fist in my stomach. The name of the mother, Abby Margaret Michaels, had been written in the same careful calligraphy, but the name of the father had been entered in an angry scrawl of black ink that had torn the paper.
The name was Theodore Lazar Brokaw.
I gasped. My first thought was that in her agony at discovering she’d lost the parents she’d believed were her birth parents, Abby had transposed facts. I turned the page. More furious scrawls of black ink. These scrawls all but obliterated the lettering that identified Jacob’s maternal grandparents as Hugh and Margaret Michaels. The new names angrily entered were Delia Margolis Wainberg and Theodore Lazar Brokaw.
Mieka had been looking over my shoulder. “My God. How could that happen?” she breathed.
Fragments of conversations floated to the surface of my consciousness. Myra’s chilling observation. “He always went for the same type: clever, pale, Semitic.” Nadine’s whispered hypothesis when Mieka asked if she knew who fathered Abby’s baby: “I always thought it was someone who had already proven himself in the world.” Theo’s confusion the night of the Wainbergs’ party when he saw Delia: “You’ve gotten old.” The way he’d buried his face in her neck, and his relief when he smelled her Chanel No. 5, the same perfume Abby wore. The photograph I’d shown him, where he had identified Abby not as his daughter but as “my girl, my clever girl.” His sense that Jacob was somehow connected with him. The world had become a confusing place for Theo Brokaw, but his damaged brain had stubbornly held on to certain facts. He knew that it was the second-smallest of the nesting dolls that was the carrier of the secret. He knew that Abby Michaels was the mother of his baby.
CHAPTER 14
Mieka touched the mutilated name of Abby’s father and lover with her forefinger, and then closed the baby book. “What are we going to do with this, Mum?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Abby wanted Delia to know the truth about Theo Brokaw’s relationship to Jacob, but telling Delia isn’t going to change anything. It’s just going to cause more grief.” I picked up the book. “Do you have a shredder?”
Mieka shook her head. “No, but I have a match.”
“This book is evidence in a murder case.”
“That doesn’t mean it won’t burn,” Mieka said.
“We’re not the only ones who saw it,” I said. “Nadine Perrault knows the truth.”
“She must be feeling as sick as we are,” Mieka said.
“Yes, but I’m sure she’s also relieved. The book is proof that Nadine wasn’t responsible for Abby’s despair in the last weeks of her life.”
