Mieka had put down the beachball and was walking toward the house. I took my granddaughters’ hands. “Let’s go over and say hi to your mum, then we can all come back and watch you.”
Lena was impatient to get moving, so she let go of my hand and skipped ahead. “Mum has a new bathing suit,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s a bikini.”
“Not really a bikini,” Madeleine said. “Just a two-piece bathing suit,” but Lena had already moved out of earshot.
My older daughter and I were unusually close. When Ian died, I had needed her help. When Mieka’s marriage broke up and she moved back to Regina, she had needed our help; but it went beyond that. Mieka and I loved each other but we also liked each other, and after a rocky start, she had come to welcome Zack as a friend and as the primary male presence in the girls’ lives.
“We heard about your new suit,” I said. “It’s a knockout.”
“Thanks,” she said absently, barely returning my embrace. Mieka was tall and very slender. She had a lovely body, but she had always chosen clothes that concealed rather than revealed it. The bathing suit she’d worn every summer since Lena was born was faded, shapeless, and, except when Mieka was swimming, covered with a sweatshirt. The new bikini
was black with a pattern of deep pink passionflowers. Mieka had obviously been tanning. She looked radiant. She also looked distracted. Her eyes kept travelling past me to the house. “Just let me run inside for a minute, would you?”
Mieka’s timing was off. Riel Delorme came out before she’d even reached the deck. I was taken aback, but after an awkward moment, Riel eased the situation. He extended his hand to Zack. “I’m Riel Delorme.”
Zack shook Riel’s hand. “Zack Shreve.” He looked questioningly at Mieka.
“Riel came by for a swim,” she said.
Zack was sanguine. “Well, it’s certainly a pleasant day for that.”
“The girls are anxious to get in the pool,” Mieka said. “Why don’t we let them show us their stuff? We can talk later.”
“Fine with me,” Zack said and turned his chair towards the pool. We all followed silently and watched as Madeleine dove in. Her entrance was a little shaky, but she didn’t belly flop. “Well done, young grasshopper,” Mieka said, and she and I exchanged a smile. As it turned out, it would be the last smile of the morning.
After Lena had been praised for her stellar underwater performance, Mieka turned to Riel. “I just made some iced tea. Could you and Zack keep an eye on the girls while Mum and I bring it out?”
“A cool drink sounds good,” I said. My voice was falsely bright. I took a breath and tried again. “We just came back from looking at the explosion. It was hot and there was a lot of dust.”
Mieka’s face was pinched with concern. “How bad is it?”
“It’s unbelievable,” I said. “This time yesterday, we had a home. Now it’s a crime scene.”
Mieka chewed her lip, her invariable gesture when she
was distressed. She took down four glasses, filled them with ice, poured in the chilled tea, and finished off each drink with a sprig of mint. She passed me my glass, then picked up two of the others and headed for the yard. “I’ll be back in a second. I’m just going to take these to Zack and Riel.”
Her relief at being given a reprieve from facing me broke my heart. Suddenly, it was all too much. The house. Leland. Riel. The gangs. I wanted to run, but there was no place to run to. I held the cold glass against my forehead and then my temples, took a sip of tea, and gazed around the kitchen that had been mine and was now Mieka’s.
When Mieka’s marriage ended, she moved back to Regina into the house where Ian and I had raised her and her brothers. Like me, my daughter was no fan of change. After Maddy and Lena decided to share the room in which their mother had grown up, Mieka moved into my old room, and everything else was pretty much as it had always been.
My daughter still handled special catering jobs, so the shining cookware and the knives hanging on a knife board were top of the line. The rest of the kitchen, right down to the red-and-white-checked cotton tablecloth, was as it had been when I’d lived there. I looked at the sampler I had brought from Ian’s mother’s house after she died.
I hadn’t had much luck in the mother sweepstakes, but when it came to a mother-in-law, I had been blessed. Ian’s mother, Hazel Kilbourn, had a generous heart and an endless enthusiasm for the pleasures of life. The sampler she’d made captured her spirit. “I’m Not Cluttered,” the lettering said, “These Are My Treasures.” And in a glorious needlepoint jumble Hazel had displayed those treasures: depression ware, hooked rugs, dolls, teddy bears, clocks, the collection of Santas that was still in a display case in Mieka’s living room, Hazel’s old cat, Dusty, and her dog, Major. Major had been a rescue dog. The name on his tag was Sparky, but my
mother-in-law noticed that when Sparky walked, he raised his legs like a drum major, so she’d changed his name. I was smiling at the memory when Mieka returned.
“I was thinking about your nana’s dog,” I said. “Do you remember him?”
“Major, the marching dog?” Mieka said. “You bet.” She picked up her tea. “But you didn’t come here to talk about Major.”
“No,” I said. “Actually, we just dropped in so the girls would know we were all right, but now that we’ve seen Riel here – Mieka, what’s going on?”
She traced a wavy line down the condensation on her glass. “Riel and I are friends. We met when Lisa Wallace and I were planning UpSlideDown2. Lisa and I wanted to involve the community. Riel had helped Lisa with projects at the rec centre, and she thought he’d be a good person to have on our side.”
“And he was?”
“He was exactly what we needed – smart, knowledgeable, warm, kind, great with kids.” Mieka’s face flushed, but her grey-green eyes remained fixed on mine. “Actually, we’re more than friends, Mum.”
I shifted my chair so Zack was in my line of vision. He was at the edge of the pool. I could hear the girls’ voices through the open window. Riel had drawn his chair close to Zack’s and they were deep in conversation.
“When were you planning to tell us?” I asked.
Mieka raked her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know. I guess I kept hoping that Leland Hunter and the Village Project were just going to go away.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “Both Leland and the project are here to stay, and the sooner you and Riel accept that, the better.”
Mieka’s voice was strained. “Better for Leland, you mean.”
“Better for everyone,” I said. “Mieka, I was sick about having to sell the property we were planning to use for UpSlideDown2, but when we had dinner with Leland and Margot the other night, he made a convincing case for creating a mixed neighbourhood. I still have reservations, but in theory The Village will be a place where all kinds of people can live together. The high-end properties will remain where they are, in the warehouses. But the houses will be for people with low to middle incomes. The landscape architect for the project specializes in small urban parks and public horticulture. There’ll be community gardens where people can grow vegetables. At the moment, as you know, there’s not a single store in North Central that sells fresh produce. The Village is designed for pedestrians, so people don’t have to own cars. If Leland can pull it off, The Village will be exactly the kind of neighbourhood this city needs – human scale and accessible. It’s a compelling vision.”
Mieka’s lips were compressed. “A vision that will put money in Leland Hunter’s pocket.”
“Leland already has money,” I said. “This is about something else.”
“He’s obviously won you over.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “I still have a lot of questions. For one, there doesn’t seem to be a plan for helping those who have to leave the area find new homes. That’s a serious omission, and I’m going to talk to Leland about it. He’s very forthright, and he’s fair. Leland could have used the incident with the sign to make trouble for Riel, but he didn’t. He accepted Riel’s explanation that what happened was an accident.
Mieka looked at me coldly. “Skull wounds heal,” she said. “What Leland Hunter did to Riel’s neighbourhood is irreparable.”
I could feel my anger rising, but I kept my voice calm. “Why don’t you and Riel get together with Leland and Zack
and me? Look at the plans for the Village Project. Talk things through.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I couldn’t be more serious. Mieka, I understand Riel’s opposition, but this is already ugly, and it’s getting uglier. We have to find middle ground before something else happens.”
“Mum, something
has
to happen. Maybe you need to take another look at the inscription on that kaleidoscope they gave you at your retirement luncheon. Refresh your memory about what you and Dad were fighting for.”
“My memory doesn’t need refreshing,” I said. “And I can’t look at the kaleidoscope. It was in our house and our house was bombed.”
Mieka flinched, but she didn’t back down. “Riel wasn’t responsible for what happened. Your house was bombed because Zack is Leland Hunter’s lawyer.”
“And the days and nights of pro bono work Zack does for people in North Central aren’t part of the equation,” I said. “Mieka, you might want to revisit that quotation on the kaleidoscope yourself. The emphasis is on creating abundance, not on destroying other people’s security.”
As we walked across the lawn towards the pool, I was quivering with anger, and Mieka was close to tears. Zack was quick to pick up on the fact that things had not gone well between us.
“Looks like it’s time to go,” he said softly. I nodded. Zack called to the girls and they came out of the pool and ran, dripping, towards us.
We’re a demonstrative family, and we always part with an embrace or a touch. That morning, the girls gave us the usual soggy hugs. Even Zack and Riel shook hands, and but when it came time for Mieka to say goodbye to us, she said, “Take care” and moved towards the far end of the pool, picked up a
rake, and began fishing out inflatable pool toys. Madeleine noticed. “Mum, you forgot to hug Granddad and Mimi.”
Mieka gave her a fleeting smile, and then she went back to corralling a bright and silly plastic whale.
When we got to the car, I buried my face in my hands. Zack squeezed my leg. “Guess we should have chosen the No-Tell Motel. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I said.
“But things between you and Mieka are going to be all right.”
“They will be,” I said. “Right now, we’re both hurt and angry, but Mieka knows I’d crawl over broken glass to stay close to her and the girls.”
“She’d never make you do that,” Zack said. He turned the keys in the ignition. “Do you want to skip checking out Leland’s condo and just go straight to the lake?”
“No. Ed and Barry’s wedding is tomorrow, and Monday Cronus’s trial starts and Taylor’s in school. This is the only chance we’ll have to see what we need to bring with us.”
“Your call,” Zack said.
Absorbed by our own thoughts, we fell silent for a while. After Zack turned left and headed for the Warehouse District, I said, “What did you and Riel talk about?”
Zack shrugged. “Basically, I told him that if he was going to hang around with our daughter and our granddaughters, he should decide what kind of man he wanted to be.”
“How did he take that?”
“He said he’d die before he’d let anyone harm Mieka or the girls. I told him if anyone even remotely connected with him laid a finger on any of them, he wouldn’t have to make a decision about dying.”
“I guess that tore it,” I said.
Zack made a dismissive gesture. “Nah. My tone was kindly. After that, we just chatted and watched the girls swim.”
“I think Mieka’s in love with him,” I said. “Really in love. I’ve never seen her this fierce about a man.”
“Not with the girls’ father? I’ve always assumed that things started out hot there and just cooled down.”
“No. Mieka and Greg’s relationship was never ‘hot.’ They kind of drifted into marriage, and then the girls came along, and they were both committed to being good parents, so they stuck it out.”
“And then Mieka had her ‘aha’ moment. She told me about it.”
“I’m surprised,” I said. “She’s careful not to talk about Greg.”
“We didn’t exactly talk about Greg. It was after dinner one night at the lake. I was noodling around with an old Peggy Lee song, and Mieka sat down to listen. When the song was finished, she said that for a while, she felt as if that piece of music had been written just for her.”
“So what was the song?”
Zack sang the opening bars of “Is That All There Is?”
For the past twelve hours, the news had been unremittingly grim. Leland’s condo was a glorious surprise. Its structure was the twin of Margot’s, but the ambience here was Tuscan – simple, welcoming, informal. Most of the furniture was wood. The tables were carved and hand painted, the chairs and sofas were upholstered in durable fabrics in the warm colours of late afternoon: cream, terra cotta, honey-gold, burgundy, orange-red.
The appliances in the kitchen were the newest and best, but the tiles above the counters had the soft patina of age. The centre of the kitchen was a large wooden butcher-block table.
“Wow,” Zack said. “This does not look like Leland.”
“Leland said his decorator came highly recommended,” I said.
“I can see why,” Zack said. “Do you like it?”
“Very much,” I said. “It’s what I would do if I knew half as much as Leland’s decorator does.”
“You know all the things that matter,” Zack said. “Now that we’ve oo’ed and ah’ed, let me see if I can get around this place in my chair.”
Taylor would have the upstairs master suite to herself, and in addition to the oversized bedroom, she had two bathrooms, a large sitting room, and a second small bedroom. There were two more bedrooms and two bathrooms on the main floor. While Zack checked out the width of the doorways, the turning spaces, and the height of the counters in the kitchen and the bathrooms, I wandered over to the huge windows overlooking the street.
On the corner of the next block there was a wholesale party supplies store that looked similar to the building we’d planned to turn into UpSideDown2. The first time Mieka had shown me the Markesteyn property, her face had shone with excitement. As I remembered my daughter’s joy on that cold winter morning, my eyes stung.