Cruelest Month

Hazel Smyth backed away from the door, wiping her hands on her gingham apron.

‘Come in,’ she smiled politely, but no more.

Beauvoir and Nichol followed her into the kitchen. Every pot was out, either in use or in the sink. On the stove stood a brown earthenware jar with handles on either side. Beans baked in molasses and brown sugar and pork rinds. A classic Quebecois dish. The room was filled with the rich, sweet aroma.

Baked beans were a lot of work, but it looked as though Hazel’s drug of choice today was hard work. Casseroles lined the counter, like a battalion of tanks. And Beauvoir suddenly knew which battle they were fighting. The war against grief. The heroic and desperate effort to stop the enemy at the gates. But it was futile. For Hazel Smyth the Visigoths were on the hill and were about to sweep down, burning and destroying everything. Unrelenting, without mercy. She might delay grief, but she wouldn’t stop it. She might even make it worse by running away.

Jean Guy Beauvoir looked at Hazel and knew she was about to be overcome, overwhelmed, violated. Her own heart would finally betray her, and open the gates to grief. Sorrow, loss, despair were snorting and trampling, rearing and gathering for the final charge. Would this woman survive, Beauvoir wondered? Some didn’t. Most at the very least were changed forever. Some grew more sensitive, more compassionate. But many grew hard and bitter. Closed off. Never again risking this loss.

‘Cookie?’

‘Oui, merci.’ Beauvoir took one and Nichol took two. Hazel’s hands flew toward the kettle, the tap, the plug, the teapot. And she talked. Putting out a covering fire of words. Sophie had twisted her ankle. Poor Mrs Burton needed a drive to her chemo later this afternoon. Tom Chartrand was poorly and of course his own children would never come down from Montreal to help. On and on she went until Beauvoir didn’t know about grief, but he himself was about to surrender.

The tea was placed on the table. Hazel had made up a tray and was carrying it to the stairs.

‘Is that for your daughter?’ Beauvoir asked.

‘She’s in her room, poor one. Can’t move very easily.’

‘Here, let me.’ He took the tray and mounted the narrow stairs, lined with old floral wallpaper. At the top he walked along to a closed door and knocked with his foot. He heard two heavy steps and the door opened.

Sophie was standing there, a bored look on her face, until she saw him. Then she smiled, cocked her head to one side slightly and slowly, slowly lifted her hurt foot.

‘My hero,’ she said, limping backward and motioning him to put the tray on a dresser.

He looked at her for a moment. She was attractive, there was no denying that. Slim, her skin clear and her hair shiny and full. Beauvoir found her revolting. Sitting in her bedroom faking an injury and expecting her grieving mother to wait on her. And Hazel did. It was insane. What sort of person, what sort of daughter, did this? Granted Hazel was difficult to be around just now, what with the maniacal cooking and rapid-fire talking, but couldn’t Sophie at least be with her? She didn’t have to help necessarily, but she sure didn’t have to add to her mother’s burden.

‘May I ask you a few questions?’

‘Depends.’ She tried to make the word seductive. She was, Beauvoir decided, the artless sort who tried to make every word seductive, and failed.

‘Did you know Madeleine had had breast cancer?’ He placed the tray on the dresser, shoving a make-up bag to the edge.

‘Yeah, but, I mean, she’d gotten over it, right? She was fine.’

‘Really? I thought it took five years before people were given the all clear, and it hasn’t been that long, has it?’

‘Almost. She seemed fine. Told us she was.’

‘And that was enough for you.’ Were all twenty-one-year-olds this self-absorbed? This callous? She really didn’t seem to care that a woman who’d shared her home and her life had had cancer and had just been brutally murdered, right in front of her.

‘What was it like living here after Madeleine arrived?’

‘I dunno. I went away to university, didn’t I? At first Madeleine made a big deal when I came back, but after a while she and Mom didn’t care.’

‘I can’t imagine that’s true.’

‘Well it is. I wasn’t even going to go to Queens. I’d been accepted at McGill. Mom wanted me to go there. But Madeleine had been to Queens and she’d talked so much about it. The beautiful campus, the old buildings, the lake. She made it sound so romantic. Anyway, I applied without telling anyone and got accepted. So I decided to go to Queens.’

‘Because of Madeleine?’

Sophie looked at him, her eyes hard, her lips white. It was as though her face was changing to stone. And he knew then. While her mother was desperately fighting to keep grief at a distance, Sophie had another battle. To keep grief in.

‘Did you love her?’

‘She didn’t care for me, not at all. She just pretended. I did everything for her, everything. Even changed my fucking school. Went all the way to Kingston. Do you even know where that is? It’s eight fucking hours’ drive away.’

Beauvoir knew Kingston wasn’t eight hours away. Maybe five or six.

‘Takes a day to get home.’ Sophie seemed to be losing control, the rock turning to lava. ‘At McGill I could’ve come home every weekend. I finally understood. God, I was so stupid.’ Sophie turned now and slapped the side of her head so hard it hurt even Beauvoir. ‘She didn’t care for me. She only wanted me out of the way. Far away. It