We stepped out into a star-bright night. The cold air was wisped with smoke from wood-burning fireplaces, and across the creek, kids screamed with delight as their toboggans ripped down the bank onto ice made thick by six straight weeks of temperatures stuck at twenty below. It was good to be alive on such a night, and from a distance we really could have passed for an extended family that had special cause for gratitude. The house we had come from, like all the houses that backed onto Wascana Creek, was substantial and handsome. We were well fed and expensively clothed. We moved easily, laughed often, and seemed content in one another’s company. Enviable people leading enviable lives, but there were fault lines in the image we presented, and we knew it. And so, as we walked along the levee, we kept it light: reminiscing about other winters; vying with one another to see who could arc a snowball over the shining ice to the bank across the creek; running with Willie as he swam through the snow.
Carefree times, but as we started for home, Willie ceased to be a diversion and became a problem. When he failed puppy socialization class, I had been too humiliated to re-enrol him, and he was making me pay for my cowardice. Inside the house, Willie was the best of dogs: sweet, compliant, and loyal; outside he was a brute and a brat who demanded his own way. That night as he recognized the landmarks that meant his walk was winding down, he balked: dragging me towards every garbage bin in the alley to check out what Taylor called the dog mail; barking when I called him to heel. Finally, when he grabbed at the leash and began a game of tug-of-war with me, Claudia intervened.
“Why don’t you let me take him?” she said.
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I handed her the leash. “He’s all yours,” I said.
She grabbed Willie’s collar. “Time to learn some manners,” she said. With two quick manoeuvres, she flipped him into the snow and pinned him on his back, then she began talking to him. At first he flailed, but as he calmed, her words became endearments. Finally, she put her mouth beside his ear and cooed, “Ready to try again, big boy?” When Claudia brushed herself off and started down the alley, Willie trotted beside her like a show dog.
I opened the back gate for them. “That was nothing short of amazing,” I said.
“It was just a first step. There’s no quick fix. You’re going to have to do this every day, and you’re going to have to enrol him in obedience school. Willie is never going to earn a Ph. D., but he might surprise you.” Suddenly, Claudia laughed her wonderful wry, throaty laugh. “What a life I have – Bouviers and Broken Wand Fairies.”
I was basking in the self-generated glow of the doer of good deeds when Jill and I drove Claudia and Tracy back to their hotel. The evening was nearing an end and, given the players and the circumstances, it had been a triumph. The first time we stopped for a light, Jill gave me a surreptitious thumbs-up. The second time we stopped for a light, Tracy unsnapped her seat belt, leaned into the front seat, and, without preamble, dropped her bombshell. “Claudia and I have decided Bryn should come back to Toronto with us.”
“Nice build up there, kiddo,” Claudia said furiously. “At least you could have waited until the car stopped.”
“I’m not taking the flak for this one,” Tracy snapped. “It was your idea.”
Jill turned in her seat so she could see Claudia’s face. “Why didn’t you bring this up back at Joanne’s?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t exactly leap at our suggestions, and I didn’t want Bryn to hear us fighting,” Claudia said. “She has enough to deal with as it is.”
Jill’s hands were clenched, but she kept her temper in check. “Bryn does have enough to deal with,” she said levelly. “That’s why she doesn’t need the three of us tearing at her as if she were a doll. There’s nothing to discuss here. The moment I took those marriage vows, Bryn became my daughter. I want her with me. She wants to be with me. Before we left Toronto, Evan and I talked to a lawyer about arranging for an adoption. We wanted to make certain my relationship with Bryn was protected.”
“You can’t do that,” Tracy said.
“Don’t say anything stupid,” Claudia said, and her tone was the same one she had used on Willie in the back alley.
“Evan was the one being stupid if he thought he could get away with this,” Tracy said furiously.
Claudia was conciliatory. “Why don’t we just drop this for now? Jill, if things get complicated, the offer is always open.”
“That’s right,” Tracy said. “Something could happen to make you change your mind.” She laughed her trilling Broken Wand Fairy laugh. “You never know, do you?”
We watched in silence as the two women walked into the hotel. “Felix was right,” Jill said.
“About what?”
“About Evan’s family. After we went to NationTV this morning, he came back to the house to talk. He told me not to trust anyone in Evan’s family. He said they’re the kind of people who don’t stop until they get what they want.”
“How well does he know them?” I said.
Jill shrugged. “Obviously better than I do,” she said.
We came home to more surprises. Bryn and Angus were cuddled on the couch watching A Christmas Story and Taylor, the archetypal younger sibling, was sitting on the floor blocking their view.
As soon as she spotted us, Bryn was on her feet. “Come sit down with us,” she said, and her smile was winning. “This is exactly the kind of movie we should be watching together. It’s about this boy named Ralphie. All he wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder air rifle, but everybody keeps telling him he’ll get his eye shot out. It is so sweet.”
“Thanks for asking,” Jill said, embracing her stepdaughter. “But Jo and I have some things to discuss.”
Bryn’s eyes narrowed, and the cheerleader glow left her translucent ivory skin. “You’re not changing your mind about me moving to New York?”
“Of course not,” Jill said. “I don’t want you to worry about that or about anything else. Now, get back to your movie. Jo and I are going to grab a beer and find a quiet place to talk.”
We took our bottles of Great Western into the living room where the traditional Kilbourn tree still held sway. I plugged in the lights. “Beautiful,” Jill said. “It looks exactly the same every year.”
“That’s why Taylor hates it,” I said.
“She’ll appreciate it some day. Bryn already does. She told me she thought it would be wonderful to have a tree with homemade decorations.” Jill sipped her beer. “It’s been good for her to be here, Jo. I think she’s starting to connect more with other people.”
When I didn’t jump in to agree, Jill pressed me. “You’ll have to admit it was thoughtful of her to ask us to watch the movie with them.”
“It was thoughtful,” I said.
“But you still don’t like her,” Jill said.
“I don’t know her,” I said, “and I’m not sure you do either. Claudia and I were talking about this today. She told me she thinks Bryn just isn’t hard-wired for empathy.”
Jill tensed. “And when did Claudia become an expert on genetics?”
“She may not be an expert,” I said, “but she has cared for Bryn since she came home from the hospital. That has to count for something.”
The Christmas lights played out the spectrum of colours across Jill’s face, but she looked wan and abstracted. “Nobody told me,” she said. “No wonder she wants to hang on to Bryn.”
“Jill, how long did you and Evan know each other before you got married.”
“Seven weeks.” Jill chewed her lip savagely. “What the hell was I thinking of? Why wasn’t I asking questions? Why wasn’t I paying attention?”
“Love makes us do strange things.”
“I never loved Evan.”
“You love Bryn,” I said.
Jill placed her palms together and lowered her head. “I do,” she said. “And she needed to be rescued.”
“From what?”
“From that house she lived in. It’s a museum – exquisite, but not a place where people live. Evan’s grandfather was a diplomat in the days when treasures went cheap. Everything you sit on or look at or drink from is priceless: shoji screens, lacquers, Japanese wood-block prints, the most incredible red sandstone Buddha.”
“Not an easy place for a child to grow up.”
