The Pat Bay Highway was dark, the trees on the roadside silhouetted against the night sky. Makedde drove fast from Swartz Bay, white lines flashing by her on both sides, the remaining ferry traffic dotting the road behind her in a moving sea of headlights. Zhora, her turquoise 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger, needed a little prompting to get above eighty, but once she was there, she hummed along with the best of them.
Makedde felt that vehicles, especially older ones, deserved names. Before her Dart she’d had a Volkswagen Bug named Bette Davis. She had chosen the name of her current car as a reference to the ill-fated Nexus 6 Replicant in one of her favourite films. “She’s trained for an off-world Kick Murder Squad,” Bladerunner had said of her. “Talk about beauty and the beast…she’s
both
.” That was Zhora the Replicant. Zhora the car on the other hand was a temperamental, two-door, hardtop classic, with an original slant-six engine and leather bench seats—another kind of
beauty and the beast. She was a rare find in original, though not perfect, condition. One day Makedde planned to fix her up and maybe sell her to a Dart collector, but that day didn’t look like it was coming soon. There was still too much to do.
In the past year she had learnt all about the inner workings of cars. Unlike some of her other resolutions—learning to fence, speak Mandarin, juggle—she had reason to make it a top priority. Never again would she rely on someone else to fix her problems. Never again would she find herself caught out with a bonnet up and no idea of what she was looking at.
Mak negotiated Zhora through the residential suburb of Victoria and turned into Tiffany Street. At the end of the block, she pulled up at a two-storey Tudor-style house, similar in design to many in the area.
Her father’s house.
It used to be the family home. The home of Les and Jane Vanderwall and their two daughters, Theresa and Makedde. A family. Now its sole occupant was a widowed retiree, growing old alone.
The lights were on in the house when she pulled up. Almost every light, in fact. Despite the knowledge that her father had been very frugal with electricity when she was growing up, she was sure he was the only one in the house tonight. Makedde suspected this new habit was a way of coping with the loneliness of the place—lights on, the TV talking softly in another
room. She remembered the time she discovered the radio left on in her mother’s workroom downstairs, and she realised for the first time that the wooden easel was still sitting out—her mother’s painting of the sandpipers on the beach, forever unfinished.
Makedde parked Zhora in the driveway—her father’s white Lancer was tucked away out of sight in the garage—and made her way around to the trunk to fish out her overnight bag. A thin line of rust marred the turquoise paint near the rear fender. She looked at it and frowned.
Must fix that.
With her bag in tow and two heavy psychology textbooks under one arm, she walked through the front door her father had left unlocked for her. The warm smell of potatoes and hot butter greeted her as she entered. She heard the crackle of something frying on the stove.
“Hey, Dad!” she called in a loud voice. She put down her things and kicked her Blundstones off on the landing, leaving them in a heap beside some other, more neatly placed shoes.
Not enough shoes,
she thought. Three pairs in a neat row, all for the same two feet.
Her dad appeared at the top of the stairs wearing tan Eddie Bauer slacks and a Roots sweatshirt. The words “ROOTS CANADA” were written across it in big letters with the clothing label’s crest of a beaver sitting beneath them. She once wore a Roots shirt in
Australia, before it was pointed out to her that “root” has a very different meaning down-under. And as for the beaver…
“It’s almost nine. You haven’t had dinner yet?” she asked. He usually ate before seven.
“I thought I’d wait. Have you eaten?”
“Well, not really.” She padded up the carpeted stairs in stockinged feet and met him at the top with a big hug. “The BC ferries don’t really have that whole food thing down pat, I don’t think. Spew with a view.” “Oh, Makedde, it’s not that bad,” he said, ever the diplomat.
“The buffet’s okay, I suppose.” Mak looked at her father. At six foot two, he was slightly taller than his leggy eldest daughter. He was still handsome in his mid-fifties, and had every single hair left on his head—and the silver-grey colour it had turned over the years seemed to suit his striking, Paul Newman-like eyes. He seemed thinner every time she saw him though, and that worried her. He’d been losing weight since her mother died.
They ate dinner at the small round table in the kitchen, leaving the dining room to continue its task of collecting dust. He’d fixed a garlicky iceberg lettuce Caesar salad and a plate of potatoes and sausage. His cooking had slowly improved over the past year. The sausage actually tasted pretty good, which reminded Mak of how far she had strayed from her teenage vegetarian model days.
“How have you been? You look a little tired,” he said.
She looked up from her food. “I’ve been fine. Studying a lot. Oh, by the way, I’ve got another shoot next week. Department store catalogue crap, but they’re using a good photographer. Should pay the bills.” “That’s good. You better get some sleep before then. You look pretty worn-out.”
Oh, thanks.
“Please, stop with the compliments, you’re embarrassing me,” she said. “I’m fine, Dad. The shoot today was just a bit of a drag, that’s all. It was for a billboard, but still…‘Last shot, last shot…’ If I hear that once more I think I’ll scream.”
He looked at her fixedly.
“I’m
fine
,” she repeated. She hoped he wouldn’t start on the whole “insomnia thing” again.
“Hmmm,” her father mumbled, sounding unconvinced. He brought a forkful of potato to his mouth and stared through the placemat as he chewed. Something was on his mind. Les Vanderwall rarely made such observations as light conversation. It wasn’t his style. Perhaps it was because he had conducted too many interrogations, but the ex-detective inspector had a knack for pointed statements and loaded questions. As casual as he made it sound, the topic was not about to go away without being discussed further.
They ate for a few minutes in silence, but Mak sensed that there was a question her father wanted to
ask. It made her tense. Finally she took the bull by the horns and asked, “What’s up?”
“I was talking with a friend of mine recently about the way people react to stress, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and so on…we saw a lot of it in the police force…”
Oh, here we go.
“Yes, I’m familiar with it. And?”
“And, Makedde, I’m worried. I was wondering if you had considered seeing someone about the incident in Sydney?”
The “incident in Sydney”. That’s how everyone referred to it.
“Considered seeing someone? I believe ‘psychological therapy’ is the term you’re looking for.”
“Just to talk it out with someone. Someone unbiased and experienced in these areas. You said yourself that you probably should.” The furrow in his brow formed twin exclamation marks and his eyes were filled with real concern.
“That was an off-hand comment I made a year ago, but I didn’t end up needing therapy, and I still don’t. Nothing has changed. I’m fine. There’s no need to worry, Dad. I assure you, I’m totally fine.” She looked at the food cooling on her plate. “I just can’t see the point of rehashing all that stuff unnecessarily, especially now. I went over it with the police God knows how many times. Besides, there was that
counsellor in Sydney as you may recall. I talked about it with her. That was enough…”
Her appetite performed a Houdini and she was left staring at a dinner of half-eaten dead flesh. From the recesses of her memory she got a flash of a mutilated corpse and immediately felt the hot sensation that precedes a fever. She blinked the vision away and concentrated on sipping from her glass of water. The glass felt refreshingly cold against her fingertips and the water she poured down her throat settled her down. Her right big toe began to tingle, exactly where the microsurgeon had sewn it back on. She ignored it.
“Mak, you talked with that counsellor for a whole hour.”
That was true.
She changed her focus, pushing any thoughts of Sydney back into a dark box and slamming the lid shut.
“Who is this friend of yours you were talking to about this stuff?”
Les Vanderwall caught his daughter’s eye and held it. “Don’t worry, I’m not using you as some kind of conversation piece. Remember how I told you I ran into that lady in the Starbucks on Robson several months back? Dr Ann Morgan? Was married to Sergeant Morgan with the Vancouver PD?”
Mak recalled some mention of the chance meeting early in the spring. Her father was visiting Mak in Vancouver at the time and had been
wandering around the shops on Robson Street killing time while she finished up a fashion shoot. He recognised Dr Morgan in the coffee line. They had met before at a reception she attended with her husband. She’d heard about Jane Vanderwall’s death and sent a card. They struck up a conversation.
Mak had met the husband, Sergeant Morgan, once, perhaps twice. Never much liked him, though.
“Was married to”…hmmm. Interesting choice of words.
“Anyway, I was talking with her the other day,” he went on. “She’s visiting some friends on the island at the moment. Ann has some idea of your situation. No specifics, of course…”
Makedde felt her throat tighten. Her temporal artery pulsed. “And what precisely would she know about my situation, specific or otherwise?” she asked. “What
is
my situation, exactly?” She knew she sounded defensive, but didn’t care.
“Dr Morgan is involved in this sort of area,” he said in a cautious, soothing tone. “She’s a psychiatrist. I may have mentioned it before.”
He hadn’t. In fact, this was the first time Makedde had ever heard her father talk about any psychiatrist in a particularly positive light. Many in the police force, particularly the older generation of officers, tended to view psychiatrists and psychologists with suspicion. The cynics regarded them as the thorns in their sides who would excuse criminals on the grounds of legal insanity or diminished responsibility.
Her father had protested when she announced her desire to pursue psychology as a career. Was he now suggesting that his own daughter ought to be seeing a shrink? If that were true, times had certainly changed. It threw her for a loop.
“Don’t tell me you think I need to see a psychiatrist, of all things? Next you’ll be saying I should be on antidepressants.” She spat the words out. Mak felt that many psychiatric drugs were over-prescribed because of the influence of pushy drug companies. Her father knew very well about her reservations.
“Just relax. No one’s talking about drugs. You’ve been under a lot of stress with your thesis and everything. You’re not sleeping properly. Don’t think I can’t tell.”
That stung. He could see right through her petty protests. She couldn’t keep anything from him. She fought the urge to push her plate away and leave the table. Instead, she pursed her lips, staring again at her half-eaten meal. Her father meant well. In fact, if anything, he was too well-meaning sometimes.
And besides, he was right.
“Just think about it. It might help to see someone.”
Mak knew he was waiting for a response but she simply stared at her glass of water. A bead of moisture rolled off the lip, trickled down the length of the glass and stained the tablecloth with a small damp dot.
“Just think about it,” he repeated.
She didn’t say anything.
He changed the subject, knowing he’d hit his mark. He had her thinking about it.
“Theresa and Ben will be coming over for dinner tomorrow with little Breanna.”
“Oh?” she managed.
Oh joy.
“I hope you’ll stick around this time. You and your sister haven’t seen much of each other lately.”
That was also true.
“And Ann might swing by at some point. It’d be nice if you were here to meet her.”
If this is a set-up, I’ll snap.
Makedde nodded and said nothing. If her dad had a new friend who wanted to visit, that was great. It was more than great, actually. But if he was meddling with her life again, and he had a shrink that wanted to corner her, that was a different matter altogether.
Mak reached for her glass and brought it to her lips. She sipped while he ate. She thought about how, after so many years of travel, being close to home seemed to both comfort her and give her an odd feeling of claustrophobia.
He’s right, you know. You’re starting to slip.
“By the way,” her father said, “you got a call this evening.”
“Mmm?” Mak mumbled. She was thankful he wasn’t commenting on her lack of appetite.
“It was Detective Flynn.”
Suddenly Makedde couldn’t breathe. After a moment she somehow managed to say, “Oh,” in a reasonably steady voice. She paled and then her fair complexion turned the colour of fresh beets.
Her father pretended not to notice. He scooped up more potato covered in copious amounts of butter and salt, placed it in his mouth and proceeded to masticate with irritating leisure. Instead of offering further explanation, he used the salad tongs to lift some salad out of the bowl and onto his plate.
“Really? Andy?” she said. “Well…well, that’s um…interesting.”
He stabbed some lettuce with his fork and brought it to his mouth. He chewed. It sounded crispy.
“What did he say?”
Her father took a sip of Diet Coke. The ice cubes clinked in his glass. She hated it when he did this.
“For God’s sake, what did he say? Was it about the trial?” Makedde blurted out.
“No. He didn’t say much about anything. Just asked for you. He was calling from Quantico.” He put the last forkful of salad into his mouth and chewed it slowly.
“Quantico? As in the FBI Academy, Quantico?”
“Yup.”
Silence.
“He said he’d probably try again tomorrow,” her father added.
Now she was the one to fork food into her mouth. The remains of her meal were cold but she
scarcely noticed. She silently chewed, failing to taste anything as her mind ticked over furiously.