“No, it doesn’t.” Jill drew on her cigarette and blew two perfect rings, the second inside the first. “Remember when doing this was an accomplishment?” she said.
“I remember,” I said.
“Life gets harder,” she said. “All the more reason to keep one step ahead of the other guy.” She stood up. “Evan has a binder he carries with him everywhere. He calls it ‘his Bible’ – it’s an update on the status of his works-in-progress. I’ll dig that up. And I’ll call our office manager, Larissa, in Toronto and get her to courier everything connected to Evan’s work out here. Now the question is where should she send it?”
“I have an idea,” I said.
As soon as the arrangements were made, I called Kevin Hynd. “We’re rolling,” I said.
“Is the stuff coming to your place?” Kevin asked.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Nope. As long as I can go through everything as soon as it gets there.”
“Not the most festive way to spend December 24.”
“Helping somebody else? Hey, it’s Christmas, Joanne. As the man says, loving well is one way of participating in the mystery.”
CHAPTER
7
When you live close to the 50th parallel, darkness comes early in deep winter. Sometimes as people gather on these long evenings, the awareness that we are separated from the cold and dark by a glass-thin membrane can create a sense of community that is almost mystical. On the evening of December 23, there was no transcendence at my dinner table, but there was civility, and that was miracle enough for me. Late that afternoon, Claudia and Tracy had stopped by with a new robe and pyjamas for Bryn. While the golden child was checking out her gifts, Claudia had leaned towards me. “I hate shopping,” she whispered, “but even a trip to the mall beats sitting around a hotel room watching reruns of ‘Magictown’ with Tracy.”
The women in Jill’s new family had brought me no joy. More than once I had made some rough calculations about when they might cease to be part of my life. But it was Christmas, and Kevin Hynd was right. Loving well was one way of participating in the mystery.
I turned to Claudia. “Why don’t you two come for dinner,” I said.
And the die was cast. An hour and a half later, Claudia and I had put a meal together, Jill and Bryn were wrapping Christmas gifts in their room, and Tracy, Taylor, and Taylor’s cats were in the front hall marvelling at the new tree and listening to “The Way We Were.”
Claudia and I had agreed to do our bodies a favour and order takeout from my family’s favourite vegan restaurant, Heliotrope. But when we stopped by the liquor store, Claudia threw a bottle of Jack Daniel’s into the basket. “Perfect antidote to virtuous eating,” she said. And it was.
Standing side by side, sipping bourbon and ladling out Moroccan stew, Claudia and I achieved harmony. “Great menu,” I said, handing her a piece of desem pita.
“Great company,” Claudia said. “Being in an enclosed space with Tracy is like ancient water torture – drip, drip, drip till the victim goes insane.”
“How have you managed to share living space all these years?”
Claudia shrugged. “It’s a big house,” she said. “Lots of room to hide. And that’s what we do – lead separate lives.”
“But your lives must intersect,” I said. “And you must have spent a lot of time with Bryn.”
Claudia’s face grew soft. “As much as she’d let me.”
“Are you worried about her?” I asked.
Suddenly, Claudia was wary. “Worried in general or worried because of what happened to Evan?”
“Both, I guess. I know there were tensions between Bryn and her father, but he was her father. Even Angus, who’s not exactly Mr. Touchy-Feely, thinks that Bryn may not be dealing with Evan’s death in the healthiest way.”
Claudia’s mouth tightened. “Who decides what’s healthy? People do what they do. Look at me. I loved my brother, but I’m not going to let you or anyone else see me wailing and rending my clothing. When I woke up this morning, I made a mental list of what I needed to do. Take care of Tracy. Take care of Bryn. Endure. Three items, and I’m handling them all. I don’t need anyone second-guessing me.”
“I didn’t mean to sound judgmental,” I said.
Claudia’s shoulders slumped. “I know, and I know Angus is right to be concerned about Bryn. I am too. But Joanne, Bryn isn’t like Angus – she’s not like anyone I’ve ever known. I’ve tried to make her more… aware of other people. But the truth is she’s just not hard-wired for empathy, no more than Evan was.” Claudia began placing the filled bowls on a tray. “There’s only so much you can do. You know that. You have kids.”
“Nature versus nurture?”
“And nature wins every time,” Claudia said. “All we can do is look at our kids honestly, and do the best with what we have.”
I touched her hand. “You’re right,” I said. “That is all we can do.”
We both had tears in our eyes. “Oh for God’s sake,” Claudia said. “Enough already. Soup’s on. Let’s declare this house a grief-free zone and spend the evening getting to know each other.”
And so we did. During dinner, the seven of us took part in a no-holds-barred, rapid-fire, round-robin exchange of personal trivia. We identified our favourite colours, Christmas movies, actors, brands of toothpaste, poets, kids’ books, and breakfast foods. By the time we were onto the peach cobbler, we were relaxed and easy, and Bryn had confided that she never really got the point of Charlotte’s Web and that, in her opinion, taupe was seriously underrated.
Buoyed by our new camaraderie, we sailed through the after-dinner cleanup and when Bryn stood in the shining kitchen and slid her hand into my son’s, he did not look uncomfortable. “This has been the best evening,” she said. “Why don’t we all take Willie for his walk? Like a real family.”
It was a poignant statement of longing by a young woman who didn’t often reveal herself, and the people who loved her were quick to respond.
“We are a real family,” Jill said.
“All of us,” Tracy said. “Nothing can ever change that.”
“I wonder how Evan would have felt if he’d seen us like this,” Jill said.
“Who knows,” Claudia said. “I never knew how my brother felt about anything. Maybe if I had understood him more, I could have helped.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Jill said, and it seemed she was speaking more to herself than to us. “I never really got to know Evan. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s the truth. I never knew my husband. I wonder now if anyone did.”
Jill’s voice was wistful. It was the first time I’d heard her speak of Evan with emotion, and I wondered if the moment for grief had come. “The night I met Evan we talked about that illumination I gave you,” I said.
Jill smiled. “Not many people can claim that Philo of Alexandria brought them together, but that’s what happened with Evan and me. Felix introduced us, but it wasn’t until Evan saw that illumination hanging in my living room that our relationship moved from the professional to the personal.” Jill’s voice was filled with pain. “Evan never talked about his feelings, but those words seemed to resonate for him. I guess he wanted me to ask about the great battles he was fighting, but I never did.”
Had we been alone, Jill’s remembrance of things past might have opened the door for an intimate discussion. But we weren’t alone.
Tracy had listened to Jill’s words without interest, drumming her fingers on the kitchen counter to indicate her impatience. Finally, she offered an opinion that was as astringent as a bucket of cold water in the face. “It’s too late to talk about what Evan wanted,” she said. “He’s dead. But we’re not, so we might as well go for that walk Bryn’s so keen on.”
