The Brutal Heart

CHAPTER 16

Friday morning when I flipped through the business section of our local newspaper and saw Falconer Shreve’s announcement that Margot Wright and Sean Barton would be assuming new positions with the firm, I knew Sean would be over the moon at being publicly acknowledged as a member of the Falconer Shreve family. The pictures of Margot and him were equally flattering; more importantly, they were of equal size and side by side. By his own assessment, Sean was a patient man. It was only a matter of time before his name would be added to the letterhead of Falconer Shreve.

When I handed the paper to Zack, opened to this page, he grinned. “Hey, nice picture of the newest members of our bowling team.”

“They look promising,” I said. “Margot could bowl a perfect game without breaking a sweat or a single one of her fabulous red, red nails, and Sean is certainly single-minded.”

Zack raised an eyebrow. “Do I detect a note of criticism?”

“No,” I said. “If you’re happy with the hires, I’m happy with the hires.”

“I’m happy. I know it started as a joke, but Delia’s convinced we have to find our soul again. Maybe bowling is a start.”

“Well, if it is, I get to be in the team picture,” I said. “It was my joke.”

“Palman qui meruit ferat. Let him bear the palm who has deserved it,” Zack said. “But it was neat that Margot picked up on the joke.”

“She does look sensational in that bowling shirt,” I said.

“We were lucky to get her,” Zack said. “And not just because she looks good in a bowling shirt. She’s a hell of a good lawyer.”

“Were you lucky to get Sean?”

“He’ll be fine,” Zack said. “He doesn’t have the feel for the law Margot does, but I was impressed with the work he did tracking down the sources of Jason Brodnitz’s income. I was also impressed that he wasn’t afraid to use what he knew to get Brodnitz to back down on the custody case.”

“You don’t think what Sean did was ruthless?”

“Sean wasn’t the one who was living off money he earned from prostitutes. We all have to live with the consequences of our actions.” Zack pushed his chair back from the table. “Speaking of, I’d better get a move on or I’ll miss my flight.”

“I hate being apart overnight,” I said. “How come you’re always the one who has to speak at these dinners?”

“Because, Ms. Shreve, your husband is the only lawyer in the province who knows when to leave the podium.”

We weren’t in a rush, so I parked and waited with Zack in the terminal until his flight was called. We had a cup of bad coffee from a kiosk and talked about the weekend ahead. When the announcement came, Zack drained his cup and pitched it in the recycling bin. “What do you think about calling our team the Piranhas?”

“I think it stinks,” I said.

Zack reached out and pulled me towards him. “Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes,” he said.

I spent the morning at my laptop looking at video clips of Ginny’s career. The material was familiar, yet I found myself moved and saddened by the documentation of Ginny’s rise and fall. Her career had the kind of arc that television loves: beginning with her promise as an athlete, moving onto her success in business, building to her political wins, her exemplary handling of her cabinet post and the growing belief that she was destined for great things, and then suddenly the climax – when at the moment where everything seems possible, the protagonist self-destructs, leaving nothing behind but the shards of lost possibilities.

At a little before noon, I e-mailed my draft proposal to Jill, then called the massage centre Zack and I used and booked an appointment. In my opinion, I’d earned an afternoon of indulgence. I had a glass of wine with lunch, then I had a nap and a swim and went to my massage. Two hours later, with the life force once again flowing unimpeded through my body, I came home, made a salad for Taylor and myself, and took my Matisse biography outside with a glass of iced tea. The good life.

Ed Mariani called just as Taylor and I were about to leave for Mieka’s. “Glad you caught me,” I said. “Taylor and I were just on our way out the door.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to Zack,” Ed said.

“He’s in Saskatoon. He had meetings there all day and he’s speaking at a dinner tonight. Do you want his cell number?”

“Thanks,” Ed said after he wrote the number down. “Everything okay with you?”

“Couldn’t be better,” I said. “I spent an entire afternoon following my bliss.”

“Well, I won’t keep you,” Ed said. “Thanks for Zack’s number.”

“Ed, you sound a little distracted. Is something wrong?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” he said, and he hung up.

Taylor and the granddaughters and I were sitting on the steps of Dessart Ice Cream Emporium when Zack called. “What are you up to?” he said.

“I’m sitting on the steps of Dessart with the young women in your life. We’re all eating double-deckers with sprinkles.”

“You’re lucky. I’m at a reception with a bunch of other lawyers waiting to get our joints bored off by an evening with Morty Lamb.”

“Isn’t the expression ‘tits bored off’?”

“I was attempting to be inclusive,” Zack said. “The last time I used the term tits, you took umbrage.”

“You sound a little lubricated.”

“Probably more than a little. Some of us got together for drinks before we came here.”

“Always a good idea to have a few drinks before you go to a reception where the wine will be flowing.”

“I’ll slow down.”

“That’s my boy. Hey, did Ed Mariani get in touch with you?”

“I had my cell off. I’ll call him later.”

“Ed says it’s important.”

“Okay, I’ll call him now. Hold that. We are being waved into dinner. I’ll call him after the prime rib.”

“Make sure you eat something.”

“I will. And I’ll call you when I get back to my room. It won’t be late. Morty joined us for drinks, and he’s already nodding.” Somebody who was demanding Zack’s attention was speaking to him. When Zack came back, he sounded wistful. “Tell me again exactly what you’re doing.”

“Sitting on the steps of Dessart with the girls. The sun is setting behind the cathedral. We’re finishing our ice cream, and we all miss you.”

“That is precisely what I wanted to hear.”

The girls were tucked in, and Taylor and I had just started perusing Mieka’s DVDs when Francesca Pope called.

She got right to the point. “Your husband can’t be trusted,” she said. “I want my bears.”

“I can’t do anything tonight, Francesca,” I said. “I’m not at home. You called my cell.”

“I know,” she said. “I got the number from your voice mail. When will you be at your house?”

“Probably not till around ten. You can come by then if you like.”

“It’s not safe for me there.” Her voice was thick. “It’s not safe for them either. I have to get them out of there.”

“I’ll bring the bears to you tomorrow morning.”

“No! It could be too late by then.” Her voice rose with desperation.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll bring them to you tonight. Where can I meet you?”

“At the side of Acme Store-All. It’s right next to the Pendryn.”

“Where Cristal Avilia lived.”

“And died,” she said.

My pulse quickened. “Francesca, how close were you and Cristal?”

“She was my best friend,” Francesca said, then the line went dead.

I thought about calling Zack but realized he’d be in the middle of dinner. The news about the nature of Francesca’s relationship with Cristal could wait, but Francesca’s fear stayed with me as Taylor and I settled in to watch Atonement.

Mieka came home just as the credits at the end of the movie were rolling. Taylor and I had polished off a pitcher of iced tea and most of a bowl of popcorn. We’d also gone through a substantial number of tissues, but I would have been hard-pressed to identify exactly for whom I was crying.

When Mieka walked into the family room, I stood up and looked past her for Sean. “Where’s the junior partner?” I asked.

Mieka scooped out the last of the popcorn. “Where junior partners go at the end of an evening – back to the office.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Yes, we did. Very low key, but it was nice.” She kicked off her shoes. “Would you care for a beer while you debrief me?”

“I’d love a beer, but I have to go on an errand.”

Mieka glanced at her watch. “It’s quarter to ten.”

“This is urgent. Do you remember Francesca Pope?”

“The Care Bear lady? Sure. She’s pretty memorable.”

“She left her bears at our house for safekeeping and she’s decided she needs them back.”

“So you’re going to take them to her at this time of night?”

“I’m going to meet her next to the Pendryn – I’ll be back in half an hour.”

“Mum, that is not a safe area.”

“People pay three-quarters of a million dollars to live in that area, Mieka. How dangerous can it be? Besides, I promised.”

“Okay, then. I’ll go with you.”

Taylor was off in the kitchen, making a phone call, but I still lowered my voice. “Mieka, you know how Taylor is about being in the house alone at night.”

“She won’t be alone. The girls are here.”

“The girls are little kids.” I picked up the popcorn bowl. “When I get back, we’ll have a beer and I’ll fill you in on nightlife in the warehouse district.”

“At least promise to keep your car doors locked.”

“If the car doors are locked, how will I get the bears out?”

“I thought you were the brains in the family,” Mieka said. “Hand Francesca the bears through the window.”

I’d forgotten to leave any lights on at home, and as I opened the front door I felt the stab of mindless fear I always experience going into a dark house. Taylor wasn’t the only one with anxieties. Reassured by the presence of the dogs, I moved quickly, turning on lights and humming to break the silence. I picked up Francesca’s backpack and returned to my car. Then, with the bears beside me on the front seat, I drove down Albert Street to the warehouse district.

Our mayor had dreamed of transforming the northeast core of the city into a place where the rich could live and the hip could play at night. As I turned onto Dewdney Avenue, it seemed that at least part of the mayor’s dream for the area had been realized. The magenta lamppost pennants that marked the district were snapping in the breeze and the brightly lit streets were filled with people laughing and talking as they moved between nightclubs, bars, and poolrooms. I drove past Bushwakker Brewpub, the meeting place of choice for my students and the home of my husband’s favourite, the Wakker Burger. Everybody seemed to be having fun, and it occurred to me that Mieka and I might leave Zack with the kids some night and come down and hit a couple of clubs. Maybe it was time my cautious older daughter took a walk on the wild side.

The shift in atmosphere when I crossed Broad Street was sobering. Except for the Pendryn, the developers had not yet reclaimed this part of the district, and I found myself in the dark, lonely world of deserted lumberyards and crumbling buildings. There were streetlights, but no one walked beneath them, and the only sounds I heard came from guard dogs barking.

Acme Store-All and the Pendryn shared a city block. The Pendryn was surrounded by a razor-wire-topped security fence, and the swimming pool and Japanese garden behind the condo were as brightly lit as a prison courtyard. Ed had said that one of the beauties of the Pendryn was the spectacular view it offered of the city. The windows of the individual condominiums were floor to ceiling but, without exception, they were dark. Seemingly, I’d come on a night when there was nobody home.

I chose a parking place that gave me a clear view of the cinder yard beside Acme Store-All. Francesca Pope was nowhere in sight, but her bicycle was propped against the wall. I remembered how frightened she was. She was obviously hiding, waiting for me to show myself. I took a deep breath, picked up the backpack, got out of my car, and clicked the locks on my doors. My cell rang before I’d taken a single step.

Ed Mariani was apologetic. “Jo, I’m know I’m being a pest, but Zack hasn’t called back, and there’s something he needs to know.”

I adjusted the backpack. “He’s probably still at that retirement dinner. I imagine that right about now they’re on the brandy and cigars. Why don’t you leave the message with me? Zack will call me to say goodnight when he gets to his room.”

“All right,” Ed said. “I may be interfering in something that’s none of my business, but do you remember that friend I mentioned who lives at the Pendryn?”

“Of course,” I said. “He was the one who told you that Jason Brodnitz was a frequent visitor of Cristal Avilia’s.”

“Apparently Jason wasn’t the only frequent visitor,” Ed said. “David called this afternoon. He’d seen the photos of Zack’s new partners in the paper, and he recognized Sean Barton. He thought Zack should know that Sean was Cristal Avilia’s boyfriend.”

I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach. “Is he sure?”

“Positive. David said Sean was there all the time. I guess there were some terrible fights. David even went up to Cristal’s condo once to see if she wanted him to call the police.”

I glanced at the darkened windows of the Pendryn. “But of course she didn’t,” I said.

“No,” Ed said. “You know how these things are.”

“Ed, I’m going to call Zack now. You were right to pass this along. My God, Mieka had dinner with Sean tonight.”

“But she’s not with him now.”

“No. She’s home with her girls.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded strained. I was having trouble absorbing the truth about Sean. “Ed, let me call you back after I talk to Zack.”

I speed-dialed Zack’s number and got his message immediately. Wherever he was, he’d turned off his cell. I wanted to go home, but I could see the shadow of Francesca’s shambling bulk against the wall of Acme Store-All. She was waiting for me. I started along the sidewalk. I added up the letters in Sean’s name – there were ten, and there were thirteen letters in Cristal Avilia’s name. Thirteen minus ten – three. Sean was Cristal’s perfect 3.

I scanned the street. I was still alone, but Francesca’s silhouette against the brick wall of the abandoned warehouse was a beacon, a reminder that at the moment there was someone even more frightened than me, so I kept on going.

I heard the familiar baritone before I realized Sean was beside me. “Hey, here you are,” he said. “Mieka called me at the office. She was worried about your being down here alone at night. She was right. Anything could happen to a woman alone on this street.” He reached over and took the backpack from me. “In a neighbourhood like this, a woman needs her arms free in case of a sudden threat.”

“I promised to deliver the bears myself,” I said. “May I have them back?”

“Why would you want them?” he said. “They’re disgusting.”

I tried to grab the backpack, but Sean was too fast for me. He threw it to the sidewalk. Reflexively, I bent to grab it. As my hand closed around the straps, he brought his foot down on my fingers. “Garbage,” he said pleasantly. “Not worth dying for.”

After that, everything happened very quickly. Francesca sprang out of the shadows, picked up her bears from the sidewalk, and cradled them against her breast. Then she began yelling. The words were the same words she’d shouted in the courthouse lobby, but this time their target was clear. Francesca’s eyes scanned Sean’s face. “I know who you are,” she yelled. “I know who you are, and I saw what you did. You are evil,” she said. “Evil. Evil. Evil. I saw what you did. You killed her. You killed Cristal.”

Sean raised his arm, and the blade of the knife he was holding flashed in the harsh security lights. He tried to plunge it into Francesca’s chest, but the bears protected her. When he raised the knife again, she ran. He watched her disappear down the block, then he laughed to himself. “Nobody will believe a word she says.” He turned to me. “You, on the other hand, are a credible witness. But you’re in a dangerous neighbourhood, Joanne. Anything can happen here. That’s what I told Mieka.” He moved closer. “A woman like Francesca is unpredictable. She forgets her meds, she sees a good Samaritan like you as a threat, and she attacks.” As he created the scene in his mind, Sean’s voice became dreamy, mesmerizing. He put the point of the knife against my chest. I could feel the steel through the thin material of my shirt.

“I’ll tell them I was too late,” he said. “That Francesca had already killed you by the time I arrived.”

I took a step back, but Sean stayed with me and so did the knife. “Zack knows about your relationship with Cristal,” I said. “Someone recognized your picture in the paper this morning and told him.”

“No,” he said, and there was real anguish in his voice.

“If I tell Zack you helped me, he’ll defend you,” I said. “You know how good he is. He’ll make a jury understand how it was for you.”

Sean’s eyes met mine. “You lying bitch,” he said. I felt the knife cut my skin and I watched as it sliced a half-moon over the top of my breast to my armpit. A dark pool of blood spread over my white blouse and then I collapsed on the sidewalk. My cell began ringing – Zack’s ring tone: the Beach Boys singing “God Only Knows.”

When Angus was born, I hemorrhaged. Ian had left the delivery room to make calls announcing that we had a new son and that mother and child were doing well, then suddenly I wasn’t doing well. A nurse placed Angus on a metal table against the wall. He screamed in protest, but no one attended to him. Everyone was clustered around me. A great warmth was spreading beneath me, and I heard my doctor’s voice, sharp with tension, saying, “Christ, we’re losing her.” And then nothing until I woke up in intensive care.

After I fell to the ground outside Acme Store-All, I felt that same warmth spreading over me. This time I knew what was happening. I was being bathed in my own blood. I wondered how long I had left, if I would ever see Zack or my granddaughters or any of my children again. Then suddenly there were people in uniforms around me – police and EMT technicians. A young voice flatly declarative said, “The knife went deep. We’re losing her.”

There was darkness and then – finally – there was light. It was the sickly light of the intensive care unit and I could see the faces of James, the dean of our cathedral, and Zack. I tried to say something, but my mouth wouldn’t form words, and I drifted away again. When I awoke again, Zack was alone. This time when I moved my lips, I was able to articulate a single word: “Hello.”

“Hello,” Zack said. Reaching through the tubes and wires that measured my vital signs wasn’t easy for a man in a wheelchair, but there wasn’t much my husband couldn’t do. As he touched my hair, he gave me a triumphant grin. “Made it,” he said. “You’re going to be all right, Ms. Shreve.” His fingers stroked my cheek. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“Yes,” I said. “A toothbrush.” Then, for the only time in our life together, I saw my husband weep.

My recovery was slow and frustrating. Someone once told me that the greatest division of life is the one that exists between the world of the well and the world of the sick. After a lifetime of buoyant good health, I was suddenly on the other side of the chasm. Even after I was released from hospital, I lived in a grey world of doctors’ appointments, surgeries, and trips to the rehabilitation centre. Most days it seemed I took one step forward and two steps back. My body had always done what I wanted it to do. It was a gift I had taken for granted, revelling in its strength and its seemingly endless ability to bring me pleasure. Now, it was broken, and I was furious.

Every morning I resolved to remain positive, but whenever I watched Ginny and her daughters running with my dogs, or found myself exhausted after swimming three laps in the pool, or was unable to embrace my husband, I raged.

My family had always seen me as strong and capable. Now Zack hovered, and my granddaughters were tentative about proposing games or adventures. Taylor checked on me constantly. “Just making sure you’re still there,” she said once, then fled, horrified at the fear she had revealed. Whenever Peter and Dacia stopped by, I would see them laughing as they walked arm and arm up the street, but they would tamp down their joy as they approached our front door. I was, after all, an invalid. Even Angus became considerate – phoning every night – just to check in.

The fact that three of the people I most loved felt guilty for what had happened made matters even worse. Zack was angry at himself for not calling Ed back, Ed was angry at himself for not pressing the issue, and Mieka believed herself directly responsible for Sean’s attack on me. The old playfulness between my daughter and me disappeared. She became obsessively solicitous, anticipating my every wish or impulse. She dropped by several times a day with something she thought I might like to eat or read or listen to. It was all too much.

The morning before Taylor’s Farewell, I exploded. It was hot, I was in pain from my surgery, and the bandages on the wound made movement awkward. I was alone in the kitchen making a frittata for lunch when I dropped the bowl of eggs I was beating. The Pyrex bowl skittered across the floor unbroken, but the eggs spilled everywhere. The prospect of getting down on my hands and knees to clean them up with my useless right arm was too much. “Motherfuck!” I said. “I am so useless. I can’t even make a frittata.” The explosion brought Zack into the kitchen. I glared at him. “What am I supposed to do with this mess?”

Zack picked up the Pyrex bowl, put it on the counter, looked at the eggs on the floor then at me. “Why don’t you call the dogs?” he said.

So I did, and at that moment, my real recovery began.

We ordered a feast from the Bamboo Gardens. It was an in-service day at Taylor’s school, so she and Gracie Falconer joined us for lunch. We all ate far too much and laughed hard. Even the dogs seemed to relax. That afternoon, we took the granddaughters to the playground, threw pennies into the waterfall at the park, and made wishes.

The question of what I would wear to the Farewell had been vexing me. The only dress that fit over my surgical bandage was sleeveless, and the effect was not pleasant. When we got back from the park, Ginny met us at the front door. She’d been rummaging through her closet for an outfit to wear to a job interview and she’d found a lacy shawl that she thought might be the ticket. It was. The shawl not only covered the bandage but made my very simple shift look almost elegant. Clearly, my luck was changing.

The gymnasium at Lakeview School was overheated and overcrowded, the parents were overdressed, and the kids were overstimulated. The girls giggled; the boys were loud. As Taylor had predicted, all the girls except her were wearing sparkly T-shirts, short ruffly skirts, and sandals with plastic flowers. To a man, the boys wore cargo shorts and open-necked shirts. Everybody had a fresh haircut. Taylor’s classmates looked exactly as boys and girls should look leaving Grade Eight, shiny and full of promise.

The formal program was mercifully brief. Following Taylor’s orders, Zack and I had voted against a PowerPoint presentation of baby pictures, but we had been outnumbered. Since we didn’t have any baby pictures of Taylor, we chose a photo I’d taken the day she came to live with us. She was lying on her stomach on the kitchen floor, drawing an Amazon butterfly, and the electric-blue flash she had sketched with her marker seemed to fly off the page. She was four years old. There was no lame poetry, but the principal’s brief speech managed to embrace every cliché about graduation that had ever been uttered. The meal, served in the Resource Room by the Grade Sevens, featured ham, perogies, and cabbage rolls. For dessert there were butter tarts, peanut-butter marshmallow squares, and Nanaimo bars.

No surprises except one. After we’d eaten, the principal announced that Taylor Love would offer the toast to the parents. We all picked up our plastic glasses of ginger ale and Taylor rose to her feet. As she stood gazing over the room, she looked so much like Sally that my eyes stung.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she began, “but Ms. Jacobs said that all I have to do is speak from the heart. So that’s what I’m going to do, and I hope that what I say is what everyone else in the class would like to say to their parents. Before I start, I want to point out my mum and dad. They’re sitting over there: my dad’s the one in the wheelchair and my mum’s the one with her arm in a sling.” Someone laughed nervously. Taylor looked in the laugher’s direction. “That’s all right. You can laugh. We do.” This time the laughter was general. Zack and I exchanged glances and Taylor continued. “Anyway, I just want to say thanks to Mum and Dad for being there whenever I need you and whenever I think I don’t but I really do. Thanks for helping me with my homework and teaching me to swim and caring about my art. Thanks for driving me places and waiting for me when I’m not ready. Thanks for always making my friends feel they’re welcome in our home. Thanks for always making me feel I’m welcome in our home. I love you very much.” She raised her glass. “To my mum and dad. To all the mums and dads.”

Zack raised his glass and cleared his throat. “That’s the first time she’s ever called me Dad,” he whispered.

“First time she’s ever called me Mum,” I said.

“Guess we finally made the grade,” Zack said. We touched glasses.

“To Mum and Dad,” I said.

“To Mum and Dad,” Zack replied.

After that night, there were many good moments. Remembering a scene from an old movie he’d liked, Zack came home one night with a bottle of nail polish and an invitation to join him in the bedroom. There, for the first time but not the last, he painted my toenails. Mieka drove me to Bushwakkers for a Wakker Burger and a brew and by the end of the evening we were back to our old easy ways with each other. Angus called a lot either to talk law with Zack, explain law to me, or keep me au courant on life without Leah. She was letting her hair grow, and she was still seeing Mr. Empathy, but Angus was hopeful. The first asparagus appeared in the market and the first strawberries, and when I thought of the bounty the garden of earthly delights would produce before the frost, I felt a piercing joy. Peter and Dacia got a new puppy – another rescue dog. They named him Hugo. Dacia taught Maddy how to juggle.

Sean Barton’s trial opened on a bracing October day. Zack watched as I got dressed for court. “Are you determined to do this?”

“I have to see it through,” I said.

He moved his chair closer. “Why?”

I reached over and touched the vertical line on his cheek. Since the night Sean attacked me, it had grown deeper. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I just need to understand.”

“Jo, there’s nothing to understand. The reasons a supposedly normal person does A rather than B are a mystery. Trying to figure Sean out is pointless. He’s a sociopath. Something in his wiring is twisted.”

“Maybe I need to understand that.”

Zack’s smile was weary. “Well, if it matters to you, it matters to me. I’m going with you.”

I tied Taylor’s Paul Klee scarf and checked the result in the mirror. “I was counting on that,” I said.

I hadn’t seen Sean Barton since the night of the attack. As I entered the courthouse and walked under the mosaic of the God of Laws holding aloft the balance of right and wrong, my pulse raced. Zack was beside me, and there were officers of the law and of the court everywhere, but I knew that the forces that drove Sean Barton had nothing to do with the law or even with knowing that right and wrong were opposing ends of a continuum. Sean was sui generis, and no system of laws could protect his fellow beings against his hungry amorality.

He had elected to act as his own counsel. He had been disbarred, so as he walked into the courtroom and took his place at the counsel’s table, he wasn’t wearing the traditional barrister’s robes. His street clothes had been carefully chosen – a double-breasted charcoal suit, a slate shirt, and a tightly knotted striped silk tie in shades of eggplant and mauve – penitential but not confessional. His blond hair was freshly barbered, and as he walked past me, he flashed me his disarming crooked smile. Zack’s hand tightened on my arm.

Linda Fritz was acting for the Crown. She was a tall, slim redhead. I’d seen her in action, and she was formidable: cool, prepared, and unflappable. Her opening address to the jury was a model of restraint and economy. She summarized the facts of the case and stated that the Crown would prove that Sean Barton had, with forethought and intent to kill, pushed Cristal Avilia from her balcony and stabbed Jason Brodnitz. Linda Fritz then gave a quick précis of the evidence the Crown would bring forth and identified her witnesses. Then, moving close to the jury box, she finished her opening statement with the assertion that the job of the Crown is simply to see that justice is done.

Without witnesses and without evidence that would exonerate him, Sean Barton had nothing but his own story, and in his opening, he cited the metaphor that would inform his defence. He had taken it from Robert Frost’s much-anthologized poem, “The Road Not Taken.” Sean presented himself as a man who, like Frost’s narrator, was confronted with a fork in the road and made a choice that defined his life.

He told his narrative compellingly, casting himself as the protagonist in a tragedy of passion doomed by forces beyond his control. When he met Cristal Avilia, Sean was in law school. She was a first-year student from a small town. They fell in love. They were both broke. After an evening of drinking and watching videos in the apartment of a well-heeled fellow student in the College of Law, Sean took his first wrong turn. One of the movies the group watched was Indecent Proposal, a film in which Robert Redford’s character offers a desperate young real estate speculator a million dollars to sleep with the realtor’s wife. The offer is accepted and a contract is signed.

The student hosting the party had urged Sean and Cristal to stay behind until the others left, then he made them an offer: $1,000 for an hour in bed with Cristal. According to Sean, Cristal’s objections that she didn’t want to have sex with a stranger were just an act. Sean and Cristal went outside, discussed the proposition, and after a brief fight, she agreed.

The rich young man liked what he paid for and there was a second tryst. The word got out, and Cristal’s career was launched. She was twenty years old.

At this point in the opening, Mr. Justice Nathaniel Peters, an affable, heavy-set man, interjected. He was concerned, he said, that Sean was incriminating himself.

Sean gave the judge his disarming smile. “Just do your job,” he said “And I’ll do mine.” At that point, Sean turned to the jury. “Cristal never looked back,” he said. I searched the faces of the jury members. They were clearly horrified, but Sean was oblivious.

He went on to describe what he persisted in referring to as their “parallel careers”: his in law, Cristal’s in prostitution. He was factual and upbeat as he talked about their decision to move from Saskatoon to Regina. His experience at the law firm where he articled had not been a good one, and in his words, “Cristal and I both wanted a fresh start in our careers.” He was hired by Falconer Shreve. Cristal, whom Sean praised as “a good money manager,” bought a warehouse downtown, had it renovated, and set up shop. Two young people starting out on promising careers.

According to Sean, Cristal liked her work. “She was a real people person,” he said. The gasp in the courtroom was audible, but Sean didn’t hear it. He was too busy spinning a tale of a life that was, in his telling, just a bowl of cherries until things started going wrong for him professionally. When he sensed that the people who mattered at Falconer Shreve no longer saw him as partnership material, his quarrels with Cristal became more serious. He felt that everything was slipping from his grasp. One of Cristal’s clients, an old lawyer who should have known better, started filling Cristal’s head with ideas that made her rebellious. She wanted to quit the business. At this point in his narrative, Sean approached the jury box, hands extended in a gesture that begged for empathy. “All of a sudden, it wasn’t the two of us against the world. After fourteen years with me, she wanted a different life. I had to get our relationship back on solid ground. I had to show her who was in charge.” As everyone in the courtroom waited for the sentence that would loop the noose around Sean’s neck, Mr. Justice Nathaniel Peters uttered his sternest warning against self-incrimination. Sean ignored him.

As he described the last moments of Cristal’s life, Sean’s baritone was seductive. “She was going to leave,” he said. “And I couldn’t allow that to happen. She was my soulmate, and I couldn’t be separated from my soul.” At that point, he bowed his head – an actor, waiting for an ovation. The applause never came.

Finally Sean straightened, squared his shoulders, strode back to his desk, and set about explaining the death of Jason Brodnitz.

“The Ginny Monaghan case was make or break for me,” he said. “Winning that case was my last chance to be taken seriously at Falconer Shreve.” He smiled across at the Crown prosecutor. “My friend understands that sometimes we have to tighten a case to make sure we win. I had to do whatever it took to get Ginny custody of her girls. I’d learned from inside sources that Brodnitz’s professional rebirth had been financed by sex workers. I used that knowledge to win the Monaghan case.”

He walked across to the jury. “By winning the Monaghan case, I had redeemed myself, but once again there was a fork in the road. This time I wasn’t the one who chose the direction that changed everything. If Jason Brodnitz had accepted his loss, he’d be alive today, but like Cristal, he pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed.” Sean paused dramatically. “Once again, I had no alternative but to push back.”

As he took the measure of the jury, Sean’s head moved slowly, as if he was memorizing each of their faces. “So that’s it,” he said. “I stand before you today because fate led me down the wrong road. One day my life was full of promise; the next I met Cristal Avilia. We went to a party. We watched a video. A man made an offer. Cristal accepted, and my life was ruined.” He glanced at me. “There was collateral damage. Members of the jury. Judges of the facts. Ask yourselves whether, given the circumstances, you would have acted any differently than I did.”

As Sean took his seat, the silence in the courtroom was absolute. Linda Fritz was slow to rise from her desk. Like any good actor, she knew the value of letting an audience absorb the implications of a powerful soliloquy before she moved along. When Linda asked that the boxes containing Cristal’s journals be brought in and admitted into evidence, the jurors were riveted. The sheer weight of the evidence was overwhelming. There were 168 journals. On the day she met Sean, Cristal began to record their life together: one journal a month, twelve months a year for fourteen years. The journals provided a dark counterbalance to Sean’s sunny account of two young people embarking on successful careers. As Linda read excerpts from the journals, Cristal’s obsessive longing for Sean Barton’s approval and love, and her pain at his continued manipulation and rejection, sucked the oxygen from the room. When Linda finished reading, there was a sob. Then there was silence. Linda had done her job. She had made certain that Cristal Avilia’s voice was heard in the courtroom.

A week later, when Sean finished his closing argument and the case went to the jury, Zack turned to me. “Well, the ship has sailed,” he said. “Let me go over to the office and pick up a couple of things, then we can spend the day doing whatever you want to do.”

The weather had turned in the week since the trial began. The day was leaden, darkening, and the cold air smelled of dead foliage, long journeys, and winter. The trees in Victoria Park were leafless, stripped to the bare essentials. And although it was late morning, the lights in the office buildings were blazing.

I hadn’t been to Falconer Shreve since the day I’d met Sean there and he’d shown me his new office. There were changes. Margot was settled in and there was another new partner. There were also a half-dozen new associates. When I passed the office that Sean had lusted after so fervently and planned for so long, there was a young man behind the glass desk. He leapt to his feet and came over to be introduced when he spotted me with Zack. The new associate’s name was Rick Warren. He was short and wiry, with a high forehead and slicked-back dark hair, and he was charmingly deferential to the wife of the senior partner. When he noticed that I was staring past him into his office, Rick stepped aside. “Come in and have a look around,” he said. The room was exactly as it had been on the day Sean showed it to me. Rick was watching me carefully, gauging my reaction. “What do you think?” he said finally.

I took in the asparagus ceiling, the soft brown walls, and the café au lait reading chair. “It’s very handsome,” I said.

Rick’s eyes met mine. “I haven’t changed a thing,” he said. “It’s perfect. The minute I walked in here I felt as if I’d come home.”

Unexpectedly, I felt a chill. “Well, congratulations,” I said. “And good luck. I hope you’re happy in your work.”

“I’m already happy,” he said. “I’m part of the Falconer Shreve family.”

Zack and I were out in the garden admiring some persistent chrysanthemums when the phone rang. The jurors had reached a verdict. We were at the courthouse in ten minutes. Linda Fritz was entering the courtroom when we came in. “Quick verdict,” Zack said. “What do you think?”

Linda smoothed her barrister’s robe. “I think this is always a Xanax moment.”

Television would have us believe that when jurors find a defendant guilty, they don’t look him in the eye. When the judges of the facts in Sean Barton’s case filed into the jury box, each of them stared unsmiling at his face. The foreperson announced the jury’s findings without emotion: Sean Terrence Barton had been found guilty of two counts of first degree murder and one of assault causing bodily harm. After the formalities had been observed, Sean was led away.

Francesca Pope had been at the trial every day, and she was waiting for us outside the courtroom.

“Is it over?” she asked Zack.

“It’s over,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of now.”

Francesca shifted her backpack. “There’s always something to be afraid of,” she said in her low, thrilling voice. Then she walked away.

Zack came close to me. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” I said.

“So what’s next?” he said.

I glanced at my watch. “The UpSlideDown Halloween party started fifteen minutes ago. Dacia’s juggling. This is her first time working with five balls. Want to see if she can keep them all in the air at once?”

“Sure,” Zack said. “I’m a big fan of anybody who can defy gravity.”

I called Mieka to tell her we were on our way, and she met us at the door. She was dressed as a genie in swirls of bright silk – a festive costume, but her face was sombre. “One of the parents told me the verdict,” she said. I put my arms around my daughter and pulled her close. “May God forgive him,” she said.

The room was packed, but Mieka led us to a spot near the space she’d cleared for Dacia’s act. Then, hand in hand, Zack and I watched a young woman with shining hair keep five sky-blue balls arcing through the air, while all around us children dressed as kangaroos and tigers and princesses stared open-mouthed at the wonder of it all.