school. His wife was watching television and didn’t pay attention to Pete or Billy or even Billy’s brother.
The hours passed and the beers got fewer. Pete went out on the balcony to get some air. The lights of town winked up at him, unchanging. Pete thought about the old bald man, Grady-or was it Gardy? — who’d come to the gas station earlier that night, with his one idiot son in the car and his talk of his other son, lover of Thunderbirds, long dead. Pete thought also of Emily, cool and collected, seated at the piano in the silent instant before she played.
Stan’s cronies usually convened at Western Autobody amp; Glass a couple of times each week. The sign over the bay doors read Family Owned and Operated Since 1934. Huddy Phillips, who’d opened the garage himself, had signed it over to his son Bob five years ago, but Huddy and the other old-timers still got together in the adjoining office to swap their stories. They stood around, drinking coffee, talking at length, sometimes talking over each other, often repeating tales they’d all told many times before.
— … I say if all them sons of bitches want to go their own way they can take everything east of the Ottawa River and go, is what I say, you know I was chums with Black Jack Stewart when we were young lads, turns out that chap she was going with was a queer, and they can take Trudeau with them when they go …
— Nothing is the same as it used to be, by Christ, said Huddy.
He sat under an official photograph of the 1959 Royal Tour, the Queen and her husband walking along a path beside Lake Louise. The photograph hung slightly crooked, and Stan could not look at it without wondering if the Queen had ever seen the inside of a place like Western Autobody, and what she might think if she had.
Dick Shannon filled two cups from the coffee maker. He was fifty-six years old, which put him much younger than the others, but he’d been married thirty-five years to the youngest sister of Bill Norman, who was one of the other old-timers hanging around the garage. Dick had been partnered with Stan at the local detachment for many years. He did not have long to go before he retired, but today he was uniformed and a marked patrol car was parked outside.
Stan was leaning beside a window into the service bay, watching one of the mechanics pump transmission fluid into an import. There’d been talk about the dead girl. He knew that. The circumstances of the discovery had not been published in the newspaper when the story broke last week, but word had got out quickly as to who’d found her. Stan had heard that her body was only now coming back from the coroner, so that a funeral could be held.
Dick brought Stan one of the cups of coffee. They listened to the gossip around them.
— Ferris’s delivery truck, said Huddy.
— That old Chevy, said Bill.
— You don’t know anything. It was a goddamn Ford. Panel built on the passenger chassis.
— How’s the house? said Dick.
— It’s standing, said Stan. It always needs this or that but I’d say it’s got more winters to stand than I do.
— Word is that Frank and Mary might move out there.
— Maybe. Not just yet. I talked to them about taking it in a few years. It’s been in the family a long time.
— I’ll come out and visit soon.
— Anytime. I don’t hide the whisky bottles any more.
They drank their coffee in silence. Then Huddy reached up and tugged Stan’s sleeve. He said: Stanley, that gal.
— What gal.
— That gal they found out there, dead in her car. That gal was one of Aurel Lacroix’s daughters, wasn’t she?
Dick cleared his throat and examined his knuckles. Bill Norman and the other men in the office became quiet.
— Yes, said Stan. That’s right.
— Aurel Lacroix, Christ Almighty.
On the evening before the girl’s funeral, Stan went to the viewing. It was held at the unremarkable municipal mortuary. Light came from brass sconces on the wall and there were watercolours of nature scenes. He signed the guest book in the foyer. His good suit had been tailored of cashmere wool many years before. Now it was loose in the chest and shoulders. The last time he’d worn it was when his wife, Edna, died two years ago.
Judy Lacroix lay in a closed casket of varnished pine with autumn wildflowers arranged on the bier around her. There were twenty to twenty-five people in attendance, but Judy’s only living immediate relative was her twin sister, Eleanor, not quite thirty years old. Their mother and father were no longer living, and their father’s brothers had died before they’d had the chance to make any families of their own. Stan had never known a family more marked by loss. He saw Eleanor speaking to two well-wishers. It gave him an eerie sense to see Judy’s twin sister here in the room, living, speaking, when the last time he’d seen that identical face, it had been frozen in dismay in the back of a car.
He went up to the casket and stood by for a respectful pause and then he stepped back.
— Thank you for coming.
Stan turned and saw that Eleanor had come to him. Her hand was extended. He shook it.
— I knew your family, said Stan. I knew you when you were just little girls. I suppose you hear that all the time, about how somebody knew you when you were yay old.
Eleanor looked at him steadily. Her eyes were bloodshot.
— It’s the kind of thing you hear when you grow up.
He didn’t think she recognized him.
— I’m sorry for your loss, said Stan. Your sister was a fine young woman.
She nodded her thanks. Stan directed a final look at the casket. Then he went back into the corridor and out into the twilight.
Across from the mortuary was a small trucking company. Three rigs were parked beneath a bright spotlight. Stan got into his truck and put his hands on the steering wheel. He hoped that the visitation would be the end of it.
It was raining when Lee woke for work, and he was soaked by the time he got to the Owl Cafe. He took the stool at the end of the counter. Over the last two weeks, the stool had more or less become his place.
The time had gone by quickly. He’d seen his mother and Donna and Barry just once. He wanted to see them more, especially his mother, but it was hard to get out to where they lived-and for all he’d had to come home to help his mother, she seemed to be taken care of, as much as she could be.
And it was not as if Lee’s return did not cause his family some upset, especially Donna. He knew it. But given enough time, perhaps a month or two more, maybe he’d find his place with them. They just needed to see what he could do now, what he could make of himself.
Last week, he’d had a meeting with his parole officer, a foppish little man named Wade Larkin. They’d met in a room in the new municipal offices and all Larkin asked was how was work going and was Lee staying sober and had he had any run-ins with the police. Some girl in town had killed herself, right around the time Lee came back- the girl had made the news-and Larkin wanted to confirm that she was nobody Lee knew. She wasn’t, Lee told him. Larkin said that was good, and made a note of it, and that concluded their meeting. They wouldn’t have to meet again until next month. Larkin had given Lee his card with instructions to call right away if he got into any kind of trouble.
Helen came down along the counter with a mug of coffee and took his order.
— Give me your Thermos, Brown Eyes. I’ll fill it up.
She took his order to the wicket and she filled his Thermos from a coffee maker behind the counter. Lee was chilled from the wet. He lit a cigarette.
He had just finished his breakfast when he saw Bud’s car outside. The headlights were dense through the rainfall. Lee paid his bill.
— See you next time, said Helen.
