The cemetery road is a snare of twists and narrow turns. I crank the steering wheel this way and that until I see the familiar oak tree. The day is warm, but there’s a cool undercurrent in the air that cuts through. Fall is on its way. Bus trips and sweaters. Thanksgiving at Helen’s. I’ll nod my way through dinner, listening as she talks about her grandchildren. Three of them are in university now. It’s so hard to believe.
I’ll stick a fork into my mouth.
The roses are more pink than red. The sun and rain and heat have bled the colour from their silk petals. But the dew-drops are still there. Frozen tears. There’s no reason I can’t come out here more often or plant real flowers like other people do. Why have I been so neglectful? What kind of a mother and wife am I? I tear the plastic from around the daisies and, after pulling out the roses, stuff the stems inside. The sight of them makes me feel even more terrible. My good intentions have only worsened things. I seem to have a habit of doing that.
He was slipping away. His visits home became less frequent. I’d call the apartment, but no one would pick up. School was busy, he’d remind me. I had no idea the kind of pressure he was under.
“Of course,” I’d say, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
I told myself it would be only a matter of weeks before he graduated. Then he’d come back home to find work.
“They’re building apartments in the east end,” I told him. “Quite spacious, from what I hear. And I was in the Sears restaurant the other day and noticed a Help Wanted sign. You should apply.”
“I didn’t take two years of chef school to make Jell-O cubes.”
“It’s a perfectly good restaurant. It’s always busy.”
He paused. “I’m not coming back to Balsden when I graduate. There’s nothing for me there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to be someplace else. Somewhere I can grow.”
Grow
. “Is this what they do in school? Puff up your ego?”
“What restaurants in Balsden serve foie gras?”
“I don’t know even know what that is. But there’s no reason you couldn’t—”
“I’m not coming home, Mom. My mind was made up even before I left.”
My fingers went to my throat, trying to pry free the invisible hand clamped around it. “You never told me that.”
“If I had, you would never have let me go in the first place.”
“What do you think of me?” I asked, my voice suddenly small.
But there was no answer.
Later that evening I stood at the sink, feeling like I was at the edge of a cliff, as though the floor had broken away on the other side of my slippers. He was older now, I reasoned. He had a good head on his shoulders. He was bright and personable and had a caring soul. I needed to stop doubting him. I needed to hold my breath and watch him go, fingers crossed behind my back. I’d done everything in my power. The rest was up to him. Children left home all the time. It was natural. What did I expect, anyway? For John to live around the corner from me? What kind of life was that? What sort of happiness could he find attached forever to his mother? He needed to be a man. His own person.
Keep a close eye on him
.
I saw my son in the shadow of a suicide. I was petrified he might take his life one day, the way that I thought Freddy had taken his. Ironic, then, that what took my son’s life was a scythe neither of us saw coming.
CHAPTER NINE
A
WHITE CAR
is parked in front of my house, but no one is in it. The backyard is empty. Nothing waiting for me except twin laundry-line poles. My eyes narrow. I toss the cellophane wrapper that held the daisies into the garbage can before unlocking the back door. The cool air inside immediately calms my nerves. I step out of my shoes, hang my jacket on the back of a kitchen chair and deposit my earrings and necklace on top of the stove. The answering machine is blinking. I hesitate before pressing the play button.
“Hello. This is the Balsden Public Library calling.”
For crying out loud.
“You have one overdue book. Please return it to us as soon as—”
I delete the message and go to the living room window and stare at the car. How did he find my house? And who does he think he is, following me here? The wall clock says it’s been an hour since I left the Golden Sunset. I call Mr. Sparrow.
“Joyce!” he exclaims when he finally picks up. “I thought you left town. You were all dolled up in purple this morning.”
“Blue,” I say, impatiently. “I just got back.”
“Do you see the big white car parked in front of your house?”
“That’s why I was calling—”
“There I was, sitting on my front porch, when this car pulls up. I watch this fellow get out and start knocking on your front door. I thought, ‘If it’s not those goddamned Jehovahs coming back again.’ When this fellow didn’t get an answer, he goes around to the back. Jehovahs don’t usually try the back door. So I went to investigate.”
“Mr. Sparrow, you shouldn’t have done that.”
“You weigh your odds at my age. I go around to the back of your house and there he is, standing at the door. ‘What are you up to?’ I holler at him. Oh boy, he jumped. He says he’s looking for you. I say, ‘Well, if she was here, don’t you think she’d answer the door?’ ”
I can’t help but smile as I imagine the scene. Mr. Sparrow—my unlikely protector.
“Then he asks me who I am. I say, ‘Never mind who
I
am. Who the hell are you?’ So then he says, ‘I’m Walter,’ as if I should already know that. I’ve never seen this man before in my life. He tells me he’s a friend of yours. I tell him you’re not the type to receive gentlemen callers. He says it’s never too late to start.”
I massage my forehead. “Do you know where he is?”
“In my washroom.”
“
He’s at your house?”
Mr. Sparrow tells me he invited Walter to wait for me over a cup of tea. “We’ve been having a nice chat about Miami. He’s American. Why don’t you come over? I was going to pull a pie out of the freezer.”
“I’m not feeling my best at the moment.”
“I’ll tell you what—I’ll send him over. It’s not me he wants to see, anyway.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“ ’Bye, Joyce.”
He hangs up and a squeaking sound escapes my throat. I don’t want to speak to that little man. He’s got no business coming here, to
my
house, talking to
my
neighbours. I want to erase this day. This week.
“I won’t answer the door,” I tell myself. “He can knock all he wants.”
I tiptoe into the living room and slip behind the curtains. A few seconds later, he emerges from Mr. Sparrow’s, wearing those bug sunglasses and carrying something in his hand. What is it? I step closer to the window to get a better look. He sees me and waves. I move away, mortified. There’s no escape.
“I hope this isn’t the first time you’ve had a strange man on your doorstep,” he says when I open the front door. “Especially when he’s packing one of these.” He extends a zucchini at me. “Mr. Sparrow gave it to me. I have absolutely no clue what someone would do with this.”
“Muffins,” I say. I keep my feet on the step, my arms crossed, my hip pressed against the screen door. “You make muffins with them.”
He lowers his sunglasses. “Do I look like someone who makes muffins?”
“I don’t know what you look like,” I say.
“I don’t blame you for being upset.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“You followed me to the Sunset. Now you’ve followed me home. How do you even know where I live?”
“Phone book.”
“Look, I’m sorry that I left you at the café holding the bill. I offered to pay you back but you declined. I don’t know what it is that you want.”
“Who was the one who first came knocking on
my
door?”
“That … that was different,” I stammer. “I had a moment. A very foolish moment.”
“Life is lived one foolish moment to the next.”
“What is it you want from me, Mr. Clarke?”
He looks at me with the saddest face, and a picture forms in my head of what he must’ve looked like as a child. My heart twitches.
“Your help, my dear,” he says.
Once inside, he can’t stop talking about my butterfly kitchen. “Your attention to detail is almost militant,” he says, his head pivoting this way and that.
“The wallpaper border was first,” I explain. “Then I got the curtains. I found the tablecloth in Paris.”
“Isn’t France wonderful? Fred and I went there in ’82.”
“Not
that
Paris,” I say. “Paris, Ontario.”
His hand goes to his chest. “Now that’s just cruel.”
I offer him a seat and debate whether I should put on some coffee or tea. Why should I go out of my way for him? I don’t know what kind of “help” he wants, but I’m not anxious to hear it.
“How long have you lived here?” he asks. “In this house?”
“Fifty years.”
“And you’re here by yourself?”
“My husband died eight years ago.”
“My condolences. And also for your son.”
My backbone presses against the spindles of my chair.
“Mrs. Pender didn’t know my son.” I’ll say nothing more. It’s none of his business and I can’t bear the idea of someone like him pitying me.
“Fred always wanted children,” he sighs. “He would have been a fantastic father. Especially considering he lost his own father at such a young age. You know about Mr. Pender, I’m assuming.”
“He was struck by lightning and fell off his roof.”
“That bothered Fred something terrible. Not just the death, but also the manner in which it happened. He struggled with it for years, especially the older he got. You’d think the reverse would be true, but it wasn’t. It was a sensational story. You don’t hear of death-by-lightning all that often. There was a mythical quality to it, wouldn’t you say?”
I shrug, even though I’m in agreement. “I suppose.”
“That’s what got under Fred’s skin—the fact that his father’s death overshadowed his life. Funny how something you have absolutely no control over can define you in the eyes of everyone else.”
“I’m still confused,” I say. “About everything you told me.”
He presses his hands together as though he’s about to pray. “Mrs. Pender didn’t approve of Fred’s sexuality and he wasn’t willing to hide it. Not that you could ever be
open
about it in those days. The world was a different place for our generation. There were rules in place, most of them ill conceived. Fred wasn’t willing to go into
denial
. That’s a key difference. She’d put him on such a pedestal his whole life. Her up-and-coming movie star. Of course, it was all over-compensation. She offset what she saw as his flaw by making him perfect in every other way. Some mothers tend to do that.”
I get up from the table. I don’t want to look at him anymore. Why did I let him in? I open one of the kitchen cupboards and pull out a package of digestive cookies.
“She killed him because she couldn’t control him,” he says. “Told that horrible lie about him jumping off a ship. What kind of mother—?”
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to neatly arrange the cookies on a plate, but my hand is trembling.
“They made up eventually, although he never really forgave her. She’d come out to visit every few years. Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy her company. I hated her for what she’d done to Fred. But, as he pointed out, she’d done more damage to herself. She created a world that left her utterly alone.”
I set the plate of cookies between us. “And Fred never came back here? To Balsden?”
He shakes his head. “The dead can’t come back.”
“What sort of help do you want from me, Mr. Clarke?”
“Call me Walter.” He reaches for a cookie. “My god, I’m starving.”
“Do you want a sandwich? I’ve got some cold cuts in the fridge.” I offer it up before I can even stop myself.
He bites into the cookie and waves his hand. “No, no. What I meant was I’m
always
starving. I’m dieting.” He says this as though he’s divulging a secret. “I’ve been eating non-stop since Fred died. It’s not healthy, I know. But we all have our coping mechanisms. I’m what you call an emotional eater. Happy, sad, scared, bored. You name the feeling and I’ll eat myself through it.”
He sighs and places the cookie down in front of him, a brown half-moon. “Fred was always better with self-control than I was. He was the responsible one. Did all the banking, took care of the dogs, ran the business. I don’t know how I’ve managed to get through these past few months without him. I feel as though I have one of those ear infections that affect your balance. I teeter this way and that.” He looks down at his cookie. “When the doctors told Fred he had only a few months to live, he asked me to come back here. To see his mother. He worried about her. I often think the people who hurt you most in life are the ones you carry closest. Fred liked this part of the province. He often talked about the summers and the trees and the snow forts he and his father used to make in his backyard.”
I don’t want to hear about fathers and sons. The telephone rings, startling both of us.
“Excuse me,” I say. I get up from the table and hurry down the hall to the den. I don’t want him listening in on my conversation.
It’s Fern. “Do you have a plunger?”
“A what?”
“It’s not what you think. I dropped my deodorant down the toilet.”
I cup the receiver with both hands. “I can’t talk right now.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“There’s someone here.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say.”
“Joyce, if you’re in any danger, I want you to say the word ‘cutlet’ right now. I’ll have the police there in ten seconds.”
“He didn’t die, Fern.”
“What?”
“Freddy. He didn’t die. Well, he did. But not until recently.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time to explain.”
“Who’s at your house?”
“Walter Clarke. He was Freddy’s …” My words falter. “Friend.”
“What’s he doing
there?”
“He says he needs my help.”
“Help for what?”
“If you let me get off the phone, I could find out.”