Glass Houses

CHAPTER 23

“I have some questions,” Jean-Guy Beauvoir said, his voice quiet. But also businesslike.

He’d driven through the sleet, into Montréal, to break the news first to Katie’s sister, Beth. He needed her now to focus, not to sink deeper into sorrow. That could wait. Right now he needed answers.

“Did Katie ever mention a cobrador?”

Beth looked at her husband, beside her on the sofa. From the basement they could hear the children, arguing over a laptop.

“A what? No.”

“Did she sew?”

Now they looked at him like he must be crazy. Beauvoir couldn’t blame them. These questions sounded nonsensical even to him.

“Sew? Ho—wha—” Beth struggled to get a word out.

“She was wearing a sort of cloak and we wondered if she made it.”

“No, she isn’t handy in that way. She cooks,” said Beth, her voice hopeful, as though that might help.

Beauvoir smiled. “Merci.” And making a note that he would never need, he saw Beth look at her husband and give him a strained smile.

“You’re close to your sister?”

“Yes. We’re only a year and a half apart. She’s younger. I always protected her, though she didn’t really need it. It became a kind of joke. She lives just a couple streets over, and Mom and Dad are a couple blocks away. Oh, God.”

Again, Beth turned to her husband, who put his arm around her shoulder.

“Mom and Dad.”

“I’ll tell them,” said Beauvoir. “But it would help if you were there.”

“Yes, yes of course. Oh, Christ.”

“You and Katie told each other everything?” he asked.

“I think so. I told her everything.”

Beth’s husband lifted his brows just a bit. Very little, but it was enough to show surprise. And some discomfort.

“I’m sorry, but you need to tell me anything she shared with you that could be compromising.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did she ever break the law? Did she ever do anything that she was ashamed of, that she never admitted to anyone? That someone could hold against her?”

“No, of course not.”

“Please, think.”

And she did.

He watched her pale, blotchy face. The rigid body, trying to contain the pain. Trying to hold it together.

“Katie used to take money from our mother’s purse. So did I. I think Mom knew. It wasn’t much, just a quarter or fifty cents. She once cheated on an exam. Cribbed from the girl next to her. Geography. She was never good with that.”

“Anything else?”

Beth thought, then shook her head. “No.”

“Her marriage was good.”

“It seemed good. They work together too, Katie and Patrick.”

Again, her husband, Yvon, shifted. And Beauvoir looked at him.

Recognizing the scrutiny, Yvon said, “We, I, never liked him. I thought he was taking advantage of her.”

“How so?”

“She was clearly the brains, the one who got things done. But she always, oh, what’s the word…?”

“Kowtowed?” said Beth. “Not so much gave in to him, but whatever Patrick wanted, Patrick got.”

“He’s manipulative,” said Yvon. “Doesn’t work on us.”

“Doesn’t work on most people,” said Beth. “Only Katie. It was the only sore spot. We love her, and don’t really like him. But she’s happy with him and so we put up with it.”

Beauvoir nodded. It wasn’t unusual to find couples where one was dominant, though it was often not the one it would appear to be. From the outside, it probably looked like Katie, the architect, the successful one, had the upper hand, when in fact it was Patrick.

“The tyranny of the weak,” said Yvon. “I read that somewhere. It described Patrick.”

“Tyranny,” wrote Beauvoir. It was a powerful word.

“Anything else?”

They thought.

It was clear Beth was just trying to hold herself together, after the initial shock and the tears. She was trying very hard to help.

Beauvoir liked her. Liked them. And he suspected he would have liked Katie too. Except, perhaps, for whatever she’d been keeping secret.

They all had them. Secrets. But some stank more than others.

“I have a court order to get into Katie’s home. Would you come with me?”

Yvon stayed behind to look after the kids, and they drove the short distance to Katie and Patrick’s home.

Alone now with her, Beauvoir said, “Is there really nothing else?”

Beth was silent, as they sat in the car, in the dark, in the cold rain outside the home. It was larger, less modest than Beth’s, but hardly a trophy home. There were no lights on.

“Please, don’t tell anyone.”

“I can’t promise that,” said Beauvoir. “But you need to tell me.”

“Katie had an abortion. She got pregnant in high school and had it done. I went with her.”

“Did she regret it?” Beauvoir asked. “Was she ashamed of it?”

“No, of course not. It was the right decision for her at the time. She regretted it was necessary, but not her decision. It’s just that our parents wouldn’t have understood. She didn’t want to hurt them.”

“You’d be surprised what parents understand,” said Beauvoir. He looked at her. “And?”

He could sense there was one more.

“And my husband wouldn’t understand.”

“Why not?”

“It was his. They went out for a few weeks in high school before breaking up. I don’t think he knows that I knew they dated. And he sure doesn’t know Katie was pregnant and had an abortion. He and I didn’t start seeing each other until long after high school. By then Katie and Patrick were married.”

“And how would he react, if he knew?”

She thought. “I don’t know. I think enough time’s gone by that it wouldn’t bother him. And honestly, when he was in high school? He’d have been terrified to hear that the girlfriend he’d just dumped was pregnant. It was the right decision, and Katie didn’t regret it. But neither was she proud of it. And she sure didn’t feel the need to broadcast it. I think that’s why after graduation she went to Pittsburgh. Fresh start.”

“Why Pittsburgh?” asked Beauvoir.

“She took a fine arts course in the summer at Carnegie Mellon University, but realized fairly quickly that she wanted to be an architect. They wouldn’t let her transfer, so she applied to the Université de Montréal and got into their program.”

“How would you describe your sister? For real, now. This’s important.”

Beth wiped her face and blew her nose, and thought. “She was kind. Mothering. Maybe that’s why she was attracted to Patrick. If a man ever wanted mothering, it’s him. Though I’m not sure she was doing him any favors. If a man ever needed to grow up, it’s him.”

“Why didn’t she and Patrick have children?”

“Well, there’s still time, you know,” said Beth, without thinking.

In the dark car, he heard the tapping of ice pellets, and the groaning silence. And then the sobs.

He waited until they’d passed.

“Her plan, her hope, was to get the business up and then start having children. She isn’t, wasn’t, even thirty-five. Plenty of time,” she said in a whisper.

They went into the home, and Beth turned on the lights.

It was a surprise. From the outside it looked like any other house on the street. Fairly nondescript. But inside it was completely redone. The colors were muted, but not washed out. Calming, warm. Almost pastel, but not quite that feminine.

“Cheerful” was the word. Homey. The bookcases had books. The closets had organizers, and were organized. The kitchen smelled of herbs and spices and he could see implements in jugs, and a coffeemaker, and a teapot. None of it placed for effect.

This kitchen was used.

It was open to the living room, and the ceiling was beamed.

It was a home, Jean-Guy knew, he could easily and happily see his own family living in.

It took half an hour to search the place. There was nothing that screamed, or even whispered, a secret, or a double life. There was some erotic literature. Some cigarettes. He sniffed them to make sure that’s all they were. They smelled and felt stale.

On the dresser in the bedroom, he picked up a photo. Four of the people he recognized. The fifth he did not.

“From the Université de Montréal,” said Beth. “First year. Lifelong friends. Hard to believe she met Patrick that long ago. So young.”

“Do you mind if I keep this?” Beauvoir asked.

He wrote out a receipt. It was the only thing he took.

They headed slowly over to Katie’s parents. He was about to tell them when Beth broke in. And broke the news. And when it was over for him, but just beginning for them, he drove home. To hug Annie and kiss Honoré and read him to sleep, before returning to Three Pines.