Authors: Anthony Bidulka
open windows my cursor was hiding in. I finally
decided to handle the onslaught on a first-come
first-serve basis, which only seemed logical. I
found my way back to the original screen and
typed in “hi.” I waited for a moment, but based on
the script since I’d been greeted so warmly, several
more chatters had joined the room and apparently
Brutus had long been forgotten. Oh well, I had sev-
eral cyber suitors who were willing to talk to me. I
found my way back to Looking for Luv. Beneath
“How r u?” was the cryptic message: “Looking for
Luv has left the room or is ignoring you.” Huh?
No bother, I always had Dandy Randy. I clicked on
his screen. After his opener, “Busy?” was a line say-
Anthony Bidulka — 131
ing “Are u there?” followed by “Where r u?” fol-
lowed by a testy-sounding “Hello????????” and a
downright irritated sounding “Fine, buddy” and
then the line telling me “Dandy Randy has left the
room or is ignoring you.” I thought about chang-
ing my bio to include something about looking for
someone with patience. Surprisingly the message
box from Can Do in Canwood was without any
remonstrations or indications of abandonment. I
warily typed in “hi.” Fifteen seconds later came
the answer: “Stats?” I wasn’t exactly sure what
Can Do in Canwood was looking for so I told him
I was a professional man in my early thirties, had
a dog and owned my own house. That certainly
sounded desirable to me. Forty-five seconds
passed. Nothing. It was as if he was waiting for
more. I told him I drove a convertible.
“Can Do in Canwood has left the room or is
ignoring you.”
Grrrrr.
This was pissing me off.
After the flurry of attention, I was left with
only one window open on my screen, the one for
the main chat room, and they were still talking
about that damned movie. I felt as if I’d been
cyber-dumped. I didn’t put out whatever they’d
been looking for so I’d been pushed aside and
ignored like a gay man wearing acid-wash jeans at
a circuit party. Well, I wasn’t about to take it sitting
down. I searched the options available to me from
the menu bar and discovered how to initiate my
own private chat. I put in a call to Mr. Can Do in
Canwood.
132 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
“Is something wrong?” I typed furiously.
“Stats?” was the trite response. Had he forgot-
ten me already?
“What do you mean? What stats do you
want?”
The reply came after thirty seconds. “I’m 35,
brown hair/green eyes; 6/1, 195 lbs, 6.5 in.
Looking for r/t.”
Ahhhhhhh, I said to myself as a dawning reve-
lation hit my brain. He wasn’t interested in know-
ing whether I could afford a mortgage or liked ani-
mals. I typed back, “What is r/t?”
“Real time…like get together in the flesh right
now.”
“Thanks.”
“Newbie?”
“Yup.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“Can Do in Canwood has left the room or is
ignoring you.”
It was after 3 a.m. when I dragged myself and my
four-legged friends from the den to the bedroom.
Time in the Saskatchewan gay chat room had
passed amazingly quickly. SunLover never
showed up but I had used the time learning chat
room protocol and figured out much of the lingo.
No one would call me a newbie again.
When I woke, later than usual, on Friday
morning, I felt bleary-eyed and muddle-headed. If
I didn’t know better I’d have sworn I had a hang-
Anthony Bidulka — 133
over. Through the two sets of windows and
French doors just beyond the foot of my bed I
could see fat snowflakes floating down from a
whitewashed sky, alighting on tree branches like
translucent fairies. Barbra, as was her habit, was
curled up near my feet, satisfied that she’d fooled
me once again and slept on my bed rather than
her own, a doughy looking cushion in one corner
of the room. Brutus was no where to be seen. I
knew where he was though. Every time he came
for a sleepover he did the same thing. Although
schnauzers aren’t known for great displays of
slobbering affection, they do possess strong feel-
ings of attachment and loyalty. And, true to form,
twenty-kilogram Brutus, stoic and proud, was
desperately missing Kelly and Errall. He began
each night on the floor by the bed, but soon after
lights out he’d pad his way silently out of the bed-
room, down the hall, through the living room and
into the foyer. There he’d lie down by the front
door on the off chance that sometime during the
night his owners would come by to retrieve him.
I’d never had him long enough to break him of
this habit and I saw no reason to try.
I nudged Barbra with my foot and she opened
her eyes but otherwise remained absolutely still. I
slipped out from under the warm covers and
trudged to a nearby armchair to retrieve my thick
winter housecoat, a big wooly thing covered with
a snowflake design. Barbra hopped off the bed
and I let her out the French doors, gave myself a
cursory glance in the mirror and winced appropri-
ately at the less than beautiful sight. Brutus, who
134 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
had obviously heard the opening and closing of
the door, came into the room expectantly. I let him
out too and watched Barbra greet him with a
snowflake-covered snout.
In the kitchen I set the coffee then scurried out
the front door to fetch the newspaper. Back in the
kitchen I poured dog food into metal dishes on the
floor and let in the two pooches who were now at
the back door looking in with hungry desire but
too proud to bark or whine. They devoured
breakfast with gentility while I poured my coffee.
I was almost in my seat when it hit me.
Mother.
Where was she?
Where were the spitting bacon and too-weak
coffee and the pound cake that weighed a ton?
Suddenly a feeling of dread overcame me.
Something was terribly wrong. I could feel doom
as certainly as I could feel wind in my hair or rain
on my head. I dropped my coffee cup on the
island counter, almost spilling its contents over
the
StarPhoenix
and rushed to the door of my
moth…of the guestroom. It was shut, just as it had
been last night. I put my hand on the door handle,
the metal felt cold to my touch. Instead of opening
the door I raised my other hand and knocked. At
first quietly and then more insistently. Nothing.
Terrible thoughts stampeded into my brain like
ants to an anthill. Although I certainly wasn’t an
expert on my mother’s habits, in the couple of
days she’d been in my home, I knew for certain
that she was not a late sleeper. So why would she
still be in her bed? Was she…ill?
Anthony Bidulka — 135
I turned the handle downward and pushed
open the door. The bed was to my immediate
right. And it was empty. Empty and made up, as
if it hadn’t been slept in.
Damn! Why didn’t I open the door when I’d
checked on her last night? Just to be sure she was
there and safe and snug in her bed. But why
would I? She wasn’t a child and I wasn’t her par-
ent. I had no reason to expect she wasn’t there. It
was late when I’d gotten in, she’d been alone all
night after a horrible shopping expedition—guilt,
guilt, guilt—of course she’d gone to bed, what else
would she do? But now she was gone. Was she
angry I hadn’t stayed for dinner—or supper or
whatever you wanted to call it—and had gone
back home to the farm to spend Christmas by her-
self? But no. Her suitcase was in the corner of the
room next to her collection of demure shoes. I
checked the guest bathroom. Empty. Living room
and laundry room. Same thing. By now the dogs
had joined the search but were having as little luck
as I was. As I made my way through every room
and nook and cranny of the house I began to call
out for her but she never answered back. Back in
the kitchen I found the keys to her van in the bowl
where she’d taken to leaving them. So she hadn’t
gone for a drive. What was left?
In desperate need of caffeine, I threw out the
cold cup I’d poured earlier and replenished it with
some hot stuff. I leaned against the kitchen island
and stared into space trying to figure out the mys-
tery of my mother’s disappearance. Handy that I
was a detective. As minutes crawled by I began to
136 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
suspect foul play. Had my mother been abducted?
But why? Who would want a sixtyish, bossy
Ukrainian woman from Howell, Saskatchewan? Or
did this have something to do with me and the case
I was working on? Had I unconsciously put my
own mother in danger? Did this have something to
do with the tail from last night or the ambush at the
landfill? It all sounded too incredible. I emptied my
cup and poured more. I needed the stimulant to
clear my brain. There had to be a good explanation.
Maybe she’d gone for a walk? Unlikely. She didn’t
strike me as a walker. Had she gone to visit a neigh-
bour? I could believe she was a chatty, visit-the-
neighbour sort of person, but she’d only just
arrived on Tuesday. She didn’t know any of the
neighbours. However I had mentioned one neigh-
bour to her—just in passing—Sereena.
Sereena?
Despite the dire circumstances I found myself
laughing. Not only is Sereena Smith not a chatty,
visit-the-neighbour type of person, she and my
mother could never in a million years hit it off.
Sereena is a complex, fantastical creature with a
mythical past that no one person seems to know
the whole of. How she ended up in a little house
next to mine on an unremarkable street in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, I’m not quite sure.
Forty, maybe fifty, she’s an imperfect, damaged,
raving beauty. She lives her life without sham or
deception and that’s what I like about her. And, I
was pretty sure, that when she and my mother
met, they would instantly despise one another.
Yet, as impossible as it sounded, it was my only
Anthony Bidulka — 137
option at the moment. I picked up the cordless
handset of my kitchen phone and dialled my
neighbour’s number.
“Yes?” was her greeting.
“Sereena, it’s Russell.”
“You’re tense.” Intuitive too.
“I know this is going to sound preposterous,
but my mother isn’t over there, is she?”
The line was quiet and I wondered if I’d lost
the connection.
“Sereena?”
“Oh,” she said, “did you actually expect an
answer?”
“Okay, okay, I didn’t think so.”
“Is something wrong?”
“When I woke up this morning, she was gone.
All her stuff and her van are still here, but she
isn’t. I’m really worried.”
“Maybe she took a walk.”
“I don’t think so. It’s too cold outside for a
leisurely walk.”
And just then, through the back door came my
mother, bundled up in Thinsulate.
“Uh, never mind,” I said and hung up.
“I start breakfast den?” were the first words
out of her mouth.
“Mom! Where were you?”
“Eggs, ya?”
Was this her trying to elude my questions?
“Where were you? I was worried.”
“Out valking. Deed you haf goot garden dis
year? My tomatoes vere so bad, oi. I haf to buy.
Never as goot.”
138 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
“Mom, could you maybe leave me a note next
time you go out? Just so I don’t worry?”
“Ya, ya, uh-huh, sedai, Sonsyou, I make eggs,
ya?”
“Well, where was she?” Errall asked with
incredulity.
I shrugged my shoulders. I was in her office sit-
ting in one of the chairs meant for clients in front
of her oversized desk. Errall’s workspace is much
different from my own. It takes up nearly one half
of the main floor and is divided into three con-
necting areas. There’s the desk area, the client
meeting area and the research area. The room is
smartly planned, impressive and, I think, some-
what austere. Errall was leaning forward, her
elbows resting on the desk with shoulders
hunched up. She was wearing a navy business