The Brutal Heart

CHAPTER 2

Sean Barton drove Zack to the police station. Zack had had very little to drink – a martini in the afternoon and a glass of wine with dinner. The cognac I’d poured for him had remained untouched, but given the prickly relationship between defence lawyers and cops, he was always cautious about sliding behind the wheel. After the two men left, the party began the slow dissolve to finish. The clouds in the west were still threatening, but the rain had stopped, and Peter, Angus, and Leah took advantage of the lull to give the dogs a run. The guests, too, decided it was time to head out. Ed Mariani was going to the airport to pick up his partner, Barry. During their time together Ed and Barry had never missed an airport reunion, and as Ed brushed my cheek with a kiss, he had the glow that comes when you know that the person you love will soon be in your arms. Even those who weren’t on their way to welcome their beloved had reason to move along. The next day was a working day, and their agendas were full.

Within an hour, Ginny Monaghan was the only guest left, and I was trying to conjure up the diplomatic words to speed her on her way. I’d had enough. Zack’s news had shaken me, and I needed time alone. Ginny, however, showed no signs of moving along. As the caterers began carrying out the rented glasses and dishes, I tried the last ploy of the weary host. “Can I get you anything, Ginny?” I asked. “A drink or a cup of tea?”

Ginny’s smile was mischievous. “Directions on how I can exit through the front door?”

I laughed. “Subtlety has never been my strong suit.”

“You’re doing fine. I’m playing the obtuse guest because I need to talk to Sean about what’s going to happen in court tomorrow.”

I glanced at my watch. “They shouldn’t be much longer.”

One of the caterer’s helpers came in and began collapsing chairs. The clatter reverberated through the silent room, and the young man looked at me questioningly.

“We’ll get out of your way,” I said. I turned to Ginny. “How would you like to see my second favourite room in this house?”

When we fell in love, Zack set himself the task of finding the perfect house for our family. His quest had not proven easy, but he’d been resolute, and, like all knights errant, in the end he triumphed. The house we decided on had been built in the 1960s, and it was solid enough to accommodate the retrofittings we needed and filled with enough space and light to please us all. The fact that our house had an indoor pool had sealed the deal. Taylor and I were committed swimmers, and after spending eighteen hours a day in a wheelchair, Zack needed exercise to give his cardiovascular system a workout, help control the spasms that harassed him, and just have fun. But the pool had been installed for therapeutic reasons and the area surrounding it was antiseptic, soulless, and depressing. It was a space in desperate need of transformation, and Taylor had thrown herself into the task.

Taylor’s birth mother had been my friend Sally Love, a painter whose work now routinely sold in the high six figures. Sally died when Taylor was only four, but from the moment I adopted her, I knew she had inherited her mother’s gift. Confronted with a space that was bare and ugly, Taylor made beauty: a mural depicting an underwater scene of swimmers – human, finned, and crustacean – that filled three walls and pulsed with colour and movement. The ceiling and the fourth wall were glass. Ed Mariani supplied a small forest of tropical plants; Taylor and I painted the wicker furniture that came with the house a shade of dusty rose the paint chart described as “azalea,” and we had a room that was a potent antidote to the grey months – just the ticket for a man whose frustration at navigating the snow and ice of a northern winter from a wheelchair spiked his blood pressure. Thirty minutes of laps unknotted Zack’s muscles, and twenty minutes with a chilled martini completed the job. Taylor’s mural and the moist gardenia-scented air were powerful restoratives, and that night they restored Ginny.

As soon as she came into the room, she collapsed on one of the wicker lounge chairs, kicked off her sandals, and flexed her feet. “It is so good to be away from all those eyes,” she said.

I lay back in the lounge chair next to hers. “You’re handling it well,” I said.

“Training,” she said. She raised the leg closest to me and began to rotate it from the hip. As she moved, the silk of her skirt fell back. She was wearing a string thong, but she was a woman at ease with her body and it was clear she took pleasure in experiencing its subtleties. “Athletes learn that personal victory means personal mastery,” she said. “You have to block out everything that gets in your way.”

“That can’t be easy,” I said.

“It isn’t,” she said. “But it can be done.” She switched legs; then, as the rain drummed on the glass above us, Canada’s latest infamous MP did hip rotations and talked about sports psychology.

“You have to clear your mind,” she said, and the measured cadences of her public voice disappeared. She sounded younger – both open and fervent. The words might have come from a training manual, but Ginny was a true believer. “You have to train yourself not to hear the noise or see the fans or feel the exhaustion or listen to that inner voice that tells you you’re going to fail.” For a beat she was silent. When she spoke, her tone was self-mocking. “Maybe instead of tuning out that inner voice, I should have listened to it. I really believed I’d become prime minister, Joanne. Looks like the only thing I’ll be remembered for now is being a dependable free-throw shooter.”

“There are worse things to be remembered for,” I said. “Drawing a foul is one of life’s most satisfying manifestations of justice. The other team gets punished, and you have a chance to rub salt in the wound by scoring free points.”

Ginny shot me a look of surprise. “You played basketball,” she said.

“Enthusiastically, but not well,” I said. “Mieka was really good, especially at sinking free shots.”

“Nothing feeds the ego like sinking a free shot,” she said. She dropped her leg and closed her eyes. “You stand on the line. The referee approaches. He bounces the ball to you. You line the seams up.” As she recreated the moment, her fingers splayed. Her hands were large and powerful, the nails unpainted and cut short. “Fingers spread over the ball. Focus. Bounce once, then twice. Breathe in slowly. Raise the ball up to your forehead, feel the balance of perfect form, elbow in line with the basket. Look at the top knot of the mesh and relax your chest. Breathe out slowly; your lungs are almost empty. The shot releases itself; your body knows what to do. Your legs and arms are in sync. The shot swishes dead centre and snaps the cord. Nobody can describe what a perfect shot sounds like, but when you’re a shooter it’s all you can hear.” Ginny’s voice was dreamy, but she was quick to shake off the memory and bring herself back to reality. “I’d give a lot to hear that sound right now.” She examined her hands with interest. “I’m going to lose, you know.”

I’d seen the campaign photograph of Ginny with her daughters. They were close to Taylor’s age: coltish girls with their mother’s long limbs, shoulder-length dark blonde hair, and the unfinished look some girls have on the cusp of adolescence. In an ideal world, Ginny and her daughters would be battling over whether the girls could get tattoos or pitch their sleeping bags outside the Centre of the Arts overnight to be first in line for tickets to hear a hot new band. There would be tears and a reconciliation made poignant by the awareness on both sides that, as C.P. Snow said, the love between a parent and a child is the only love that must grow towards separation. But Ginny’s custody battle had removed her from the ideal world, and as I glanced at her worn face, I knew the prospect of being legally severed from her daughters was taking its toll.

She hugged her legs to herself. “I could have made a difference,” she said.

“You still can,” I said. “Even if your ex-husband gets custody, you’ll have rights. Your daughters are growing up. There’s a lot you’ll be able to give them.”

Ginny levelled her gaze at me. She looked perplexed. “Em and Chloe don’t need anything from me. They’re smart and strong. Contrary to what you’ve undoubtedly heard, I’ve been a good parent. They’ll be fine if they end up with Jason.”

I was astounded. “If you don’t care about the custody, why are you going to court?”

Ginny’s slate-blue eyes were cool. “Because I have – or did have – political aspirations, and it would have been political suicide not to put up a fight for the girls.” She read my face. “Now, I’ve shocked you. Tell me something, Joanne. If I were a man, would you be shocked at what I just said?”

I stared at the tranquil water of our pool. “I wouldn’t give it a second thought,” I said. “I apologize.”

Ginny seemed amused. “My old coach used to say, ‘Don’t apologize. Do something.’ ”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll do something. How would you feel about me helping you get your case in front of the public?”

She stiffened. “ ‘The Rise and Fall of Ginny Monaghan’? I don’t think so. There are enough people lining up to throw a handful of dirt on my political grave.”

“This wouldn’t be a sensational piece. Did you see that NationTV special on the religious right and the values war in Canadian politics?”

“One of my advisers made me watch it, but I’m glad I did. It was good. Fair, balanced, and I actually learned a few things.”

“That’s what I was hoping for,” I said. “I wrote it. And I’ve talked to the producer about doing some more specials along that line. She says we should pitch the shows as Issues for Dummies.”

“Never overestimate the intelligence of the voting public,” Ginny said.

“I’m hoping if we give viewers small nibbles at big questions, they might want to learn more.”

Ginny cocked her head. “And you think my story might give them a taste for more?”

“I’ve taught a graduate class in Women and Party Politics for the past five years. I have the research, but I could use a human face.”

“Or, even better, a human sacrifice,” Ginny said. “Well, why not? Nineteen days till E-Day. Follow me around, and you’ll be able to give the public some dynamite insights into the best prime minister Canada never had.” She smoothed her skirt, swung her legs off the lounge, and leaned towards me. “Consider me officially in, but no cameras, no tape recorders – just you and your notebook.”

Outside a car door slammed. Ginny stood up and stretched. “The men return,” she said. “Impeccable timing.”

When Sean came in with Zack, I didn’t encourage a visit. It was clear we’d all had enough. I told Ginny I’d see her the next day in court, then we said goodnight. After I closed the door, Zack shot me a quizzical look. “So what was that all about?”

“Ginny and I have struck a mutual assistance pact. I’m going to be inside her campaign for the next couple of weeks, and in return, I’ll use Ginny as my focus in that politics and women program I’m working on for NationTV.”

“So a good evening,” Zack said.

“No, but one good outcome. How about you?”

“Lousy evening. Lousy outcome.” Zack turned his chair towards the hall. “But I am soaked to the skivvies, so you’re going to have to wait for the blow by blow till after I have a shower.”

“I’ll give you a rubdown when you’re ready,” I said.

Zack looked at me hard. “You do realize that most women would be ready to kill me right now.”

“The possibility crossed my mind,” I said. “But we took an oath to stay together for better or worse, and as you reminded me at the altar, a deal’s a deal.”

He took my hand. “Thank God for legal training.”

Casual physical intimacy was difficult for Zack and me. We couldn’t walk hand in hand along the beach at our cottage, grope each other in the kitchen when we were drying the dishes, or make out at the movies. But we were deeply in love, so we had built some small rituals into our day that gave us both pleasure. The mutual nightly massage was one of them. Sometimes as we kneaded each other’s muscles, we talked about our day; sometimes we were silent, content just to feel the comfort of deep touch. As I worked the knotted muscles of my husband’s shoulders, he groaned.

“Better?” I murmured.

“Getting there,” he said.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, but we have to.”

“Let’s have it, then,” I said.

“Boy, where to start? Debbie Haczkewicz is leading the investigation, which isn’t exactly a break for me.”

“I thought you liked Debbie.”

“I do. And that makes it harder.”

I followed his thinking. “Harder to lie?”

“Uh-uh. Unless you’re a cop, lying gets you in serious trouble. But there are ways of telling the truth that leave the facts open to interpretation.”

“And that’s what you did with Debbie.”

“Bingo. I told her that I went to Cristal’s condo to pay her off so she wouldn’t show a DVD that was personally embarrassing on the Internet.”

I poured more massage oil into my palm. “And Debbie naturally assumed that the person who would be embarrassed was you.”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t she ask to see the DVDS?”

“Yep, but I said they’d been destroyed, and that was the truth. As soon as I left Cristal’s condo, I went back to the office. We deal with a lot of stuff that’s too hot to toss without shredding. Cops have been known to go through trash. Anyway, I asked Norine to shred the discs, and she did.”

“No questions asked?”

“Norine’s been my assistant for fifteen years. She knows not to know what she shouldn’t know.”

“And Debbie accepted your word that the discs had been destroyed?”

“Debbie’s a smart cop. She probably had her guys picking through the firm’s garbage while she was interviewing me, but she was gracious. She knows I’m married. Of course, she’s still a cop, so we had a little go round about destroying evidence, but I pointed out that when I was dealing with those DVDs they weren’t evidence because Cristal Avilia was still alive.”

“So you’re home free.”

“No one’s ever home free, Jo. That’s why the cops keep burrowing in. Tonight after Debbie was finished making nice, her buddies showed me their crime scene photos.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Just in a sharing mood, I guess. Truthfully, I imagine they wanted to watch my reaction to seeing Cristal.”

“I hope you kept Sean with you.”

“I did. Over the years, I’ve probably instructed at least two thousand clients not to say anything to the cops, but there’s something about staring at pictures of a dead body that loosens the tongue. Anyway, I didn’t screw up, but there were some shots of Cristal that are going to stay with me for a while.” Zack’s body tensed and I dug my fingers more deeply into the spaces along his spine. “She was young and she’s dead,” he said. “That’s bad enough, but there was one thing that really got me. Whoever killed Cristal went to the trouble of placing a book on her chest. It was that novel you and Ned talked about the last time we had dinner.”

“Portrait of a Lady,” I said.

“Right,” Zack said. “Debbie’s tough, but even she was taken aback at the cruelty of that gesture.”

My heart lurched. “The night we had dinner, Ned told me he’d given a copy of the book to a young friend who was determined to make something of her life. He said his friend was like the character Isabel Archer – too good for her world.”

I squeezed some more oil into my hand and began to rub the scarred area at the base of Zack’s spine. His upper body was powerful, but his lower spine was criss-crossed with scarring from botched surgeries that failed to fix what a drunk’s car had done to him forty-three years ago when he was coming home from baseball practice.

I smoothed oil on the raised tissue of his scars. “What was Cristal like?”

“To be honest,” he said. “I don’t know. When I saw the tape of her with Ned, I was really surprised. Not at the sex, but at the way she was with him: affectionate, attentive, the kind of young wife he must have remembered. With me, there was none of that.”

“What was she like with you?”

“She was exactly what I wanted. All business,” he said wryly. “Your turn now.” Zack pushed himself to a sitting position, then used his arms to inch himself back so the pillows piled against the headboard supported him. It was an awkward process, and once at the beginning of our marriage, I’d offered to help. He’d been curt, and I hadn’t offered again.

When Zack was settled, he took a deep breath. “I’m ready. Move on in.” He picked up the massage oil I’d given him for his birthday. “Okay if I use this stuff or do you want something else?”

I sniffed my fingers. “Rosemary, jasmine, and a hint of wood and ocean breeze. At least that’s what the website promised. Can’t ask for more than that.” I removed my pyjama top. Zack kissed my shoulder. “Wood and ocean breezes aren’t as sexy as the perfume you’re wearing.”

“I’m not wearing perfume,” I said.

Zack kissed the hollow of my neck. “I hope you know I feel like shit about that relationship with Cristal.”

I reached over and turned out the light. “It was another time,” I said. “Everything’s different now.” I kissed him and slid down in the bed.

Zack moved beside me and caressed my breast. “You’re going to miss out on your massage.”

I slid my hand over his nipples. “A massage is only a massage,” I said. “But a good cigar is a smoke.”

Our lovemaking that night was urgent, as if we thought the heat of physical passion could burn away the ugliness of the last two hours. Usually, when the sex was that good, we both fell asleep afterwards, but that night, sleep did not come easily to me. I lay watching Zack’s chest rise and fall and thought about our life together. We had both embarked on middle age when we met, but perhaps because it had been the right time for us both, we had negotiated the tricky labours of day-to-day life together with surprising ease. My first husband had been a politician, whose star was still rising when he was killed on a snowy Saskatchewan highway. We had a young family, and before his death, I was the woman behind the man. Suddenly, there was no man for me to stand behind. Initially, I was devastated, then I was terrified, but ultimately, I’d learned to stand alone. Zack had always been a lone wolf. Abandoned by his father, dismissed by his mother, until we met, his emotional life began and ended with his work and with the legal partners he’d known since their first year together at the College of Law. No one had been more surprised than we were when we fell in love.

Six months after we met, we were standing in front of the altar at St. Paul’s Cathedral exchanging vows and wedding bands. As the dean pronounced us husband and wife, the old wives’ warning crossed my mind: “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” For once, the old wives had been wrong. Until we met, Zack had travelled through life unencumbered, and I feared he would chafe at family life, but he gulped up domesticity like a starving man. Having kids, owning dogs, learning how to run a household were new adventures for Zack, but he wanted to be part of everything. Grateful for the sweetness of our new existence, we were careful never to let everyday contentment slip through our grasp. But that night, it wasn’t the sweetness of the day that I remembered, it was Zack’s bleak statement that we are hanged by the loose threads of our life. It was a truth I had seen played out too often, and despite the afterglow of lovemaking, I felt a thrill of existential terror. I moved closer to my husband, put my head on his chest, and listened to the rhythm of his heart until I, too, fell asleep.

The next morning when the dogs and I got back from our run, the newspaper was in the mailbox. I picked it up and headed for the back lawn so Willie and Pantera could rub some of the mud off their feet. While they chased each other around the yard, I scanned the Leader-Post. As they would for more days than anyone could have anticipated, Ginny Monaghan and Cristal Avilia dominated the front page.

The story about Ginny focused not surprisingly on her daughters. The paper had printed side-by-side photos of the girls with each of their warring parents. The picture of Ginny and her daughters had come from her campaign literature. The twins were immaculately groomed, but their smiles were tight, and I remembered the misery of getting our kids to pose for the requisite family campaign portrait. The photo of the girls with Jason Brodnitz was a candid shot of the three of them skiing, ruddy with cold and pleasure. In the battle of the photo op, Ginny had lost round one.

There was no picture of Cristal Avilia, and the story was sketchy on details – a thirty-four-year-old woman had become the city’s sixth homicide victim of the year. Cristal Eden Avilia had been found dead outside her condo in the warehouse district shortly after 6:00 p.m. Wednesday. The police were not releasing the cause of death. Anyone with information about her death was asked to call police.

I dropped the newspaper on the picnic table. No use starting the day with a reminder of the complexities of the outside world. I called the dogs. “Come on, you two, let’s go inside and say good morning to our big sparkly top banana.”

When I walked into the kitchen, it seemed the universe was unfolding as it should. The coffee was brewed; the juice was poured; the porridge was made; and Zack was sitting at the breakfast table thumbing his BlackBerry, wholly absorbed. I never tired of my husband’s face. He was a handsome man: balding, thick-browed, and dark-eyed, with a generous, sensuous mouth and a vertical fold, like a bloodhound, in his right cheek. In court he could freeze an opponent with his barracuda smile, but at home his mouth softened and his smile was melting. The dogs loped over to him, and I kissed the top of his head. He flicked his BlackBerry off. “Breakfast is ready, our daughter is safe in her bed, and you and the dogs are here. Life is good.”

“You bet,” I said. I filled the dog bowls.

Zack watched with awe as Willie and Pantera inhaled their food. “Imagine loving any food as much as they love that stuff,” he said.

“And it’s the same thing, day in, day out.” I read the label on the sack. “Ground yellow corn, poultry by-product meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tochopherols, animal digest…”

Zack frowned. “What the hell is animal digest?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” I brought our coffee over to the table and began ladling out the porridge. “Mmm,” I said. “Cashews – my lucky day. So what’s with all the messages? It’s only a little after seven.”

Zack sipped his coffee. “It seems that Cristal had many clients. Judging from my messages, a lot of them are lawyers.”

“If they’re lawyers, why don’t they talk to someone from their own firms?”

“Because the lawyers in their own firms are respectable, and they’ve done something they’re ashamed of. Sometimes only the Prince of Darkness will do.”

“Is that why Ned sought you out at the end?”

Zack sipped his coffee. “I guess, and isn’t that a hell of a note? He’d been partners with Doug Meinhart and Gerry Loftus for fifty years, but when he decided to end his life he couldn’t go to them because he’d indulged in a common sex act and some desperate fantasy.” Zack drained his juice. “Not nice stuff, according to the rigorous standards of Osler Meinhart and Loftus. Do you know that every Friday for fifty years the partners and staff there have gathered in their boardroom to have a glass of pale amontillado sherry. Ned told me once they look forward to it all week. Jesus, what a bunch of bloodless sticks.” Zack dug his spoon into his porridge. “Anyway, that explains why Ned came to me.”

“Does it ever bother you that you’re not Atticus Finch?”

Zack’s spoon stopped in mid-air. “No, because I don’t know who he is.”

“The lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird. Gregory Peck played him in the movie.”

“Whoa, Gregory Peck.” Zack’s tone was sardonic. “So I’m guessing that Atticus Finch was noble, and that he won his case.”

“No, he lost his case, but he lost nobly.”

Zack swallowed his porridge. “Maybe if he’d been willing to get his hands dirty, he would have won.”

I didn’t respond, and Zack looked at me hard. “So does it bother you that I’m not Atticus Finch?”

I met his gaze. “I’m getting used to living on the edge,” I said. “Want some toast?”

“No time. I have to be in court this morning. And I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do.”

“Is it a big case?”

Zack shook his head. “Nope. Simple assault. Remember that woman who punched the mayor in the nose? It was in the news a couple of months ago.”

“The homeless woman,” I said. “She was protesting the gentrification project in the warehouse district.”

“Right,” Zack said. “Well, that’s my client. Her name is Francesca Pope, and she’s schizophrenic. The day of the incident, she was off her meds. She is quite literally not guilty by reason of insanity. She really didn’t understand what she was doing when she assaulted that officious prick.”

“So you can get her off?”

“Without breaking a sweat, but therein lies the problem. If I argue she’s unfit to stand trial, the Crown will go along with me, and she’ll be committed to the hospital in North Battleford.”

“Wouldn’t that be the best thing for her? She’d be cared for, and she’d get treatment.”

“And she’d be locked up, which is exactly what Francesca doesn’t want because she’s afraid they’ll take her bears away.”

“Her bears?”

“She has a backpack full of stuffed bears. She tells me they’re called Care Bears.”

“Mieka used to collect those when she was little.”

“I hope they were in better shape than these. The smell of them just about knocks me out. But gross as they are, they are Francesca’s treasure. Really, Jo, those Care Bears are like her kids. Try to think of it in those terms, and you can understand why she’s so frightened of being locked up.”

“But, Zack, if she’s a danger…”

“She isn’t. She’s no more a danger than you are, but the mayor was annoyed because the bears were ruining his picture, so he kicked them out of the way.”

“So you’re going to try to get her off?”

“That’s what she wants. The Crown will want to send her to North Battleford for treatment, but there aren’t many spaces. She’ll have to wait, and in the meantime she’ll go to Pine Grove and be thrown in with the general population. She’ll be housed and fed and her meds will be administered, but there’ll be no treatment. Pine Grove is a tense place, Jo, full of people who are quick to judge and quick to take advantage – just about the worst possible atmosphere you could imagine for a schizophrenic.”

“And the alternative is the street.”

“Right, where there’s no one to take care of her or make sure she has her medication, but where she will have her bears.” Zack swept a hand across his eyes. “So which door would you choose, Ms. Shreve?

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well, luckily it’s not your problem,” he said. “Anything going on tonight?”

“We have that meeting about the Farewell at Taylor’s school.”

“Jeez, I almost forgot. But I’m prepared. Taylor told me exactly how to vote.”

I smiled. “Did she now? So, are you going to fill me in?”

“Let’s see.” Zack squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. “No on semi-formal dress because last year the boys kept pretending to hang themselves with their ties. No on a PowerPoint presentation of baby pictures, and no on having the principal read lame poems about the future. Yes on ham, yes on Nanaimo bars, and yes on getting the class picture taken at Waterfall Park.”

“You’re amazing,” I said.

“Especially since when I was in Grade Eight, there weren’t any ceremonies when we made it to high school. The teachers just booted us out the door.”

“And look how well you turned out,” I said.

“Any complaints?”

“Just the same old lament. I wish you didn’t work so hard.”

“I’m cutting back. I’ve turned down a couple of big cases lately.”

“Alleluia,” I said. “So are you finally going to start handing off some of your files to Sean?”

Zack shook his head. “No, not to Sean. I have somebody else in mind, but we haven’t had a chance to talk, so nothing’s official.”

“That’s a surprise,” I said. “Have you told Sean?”

“Yeah. I told him last night when we were driving back from the cop shop.”

“How did he take it?”

“Not great. He didn’t throw me out of the car or anything, but he was disappointed.”

“Understandably,” I said. “I’m sure he thought he was the heir apparent. He’s been working with you for a long time.”

“True, and while he was working with me, I was able to get a pretty good idea of his capabilities.”

“Good enough for an associate but not for a partner?”

“Yup. Sean is competent, but he’s not partner material.”

“That’s sad,” I said. “He’s devoted to you.”

“I’m not having him euthanized, Jo. As I reminded Sean last night, he has options. He can go to another firm or he can stay on as a senior associate at Falconer Shreve and eat what he kills.”

“What does that mean?”

“Right now, Sean gets a percentage of his billables and if his billables are high, he gets a bonus. As a senior associate, he’d get to keep pretty much everything he brought in.” Zack raised his hands, palms up. “He eats what he kills.”

I shuddered. “That terminology’s a little brutal, isn’t it?”

Zack pushed his chair back from the table. “Life is brutal. Madeleine could tell you that. On the five occasions she and I watched March of the Penguins, she alerted me to the line, ‘Not all penguins survive.’ ”

After we’d cleared away our breakfast things, Zack went to shower and dress and I went to Taylor’s room to get her moving. She was a girl who loved creature comforts, and her bedroom caught the morning sun. Nested in her sheets with the sunshine warm on her face and her cats, Bruce and Benny, at her feet, Taylor had many reasons for staying in bed, but even more reasons for getting up. I kissed her hair. “Time to get up,” I said.

She threw back her sheets and bolted upright. The hormones were kicking in. “Tonight’s the meeting about the Farewell. I am soooooo excited.”

“I guess we should start thinking about what you’re going to wear,” I said.

“I know what I’m not going to wear,” Taylor said.

“That’s a start,” I said. “So what are you not going to wear?”

“The same thing everybody else is wearing: sparkly T-shirt, short ruffly skirt, and sandals with plastic flowers.”

I sat on the bed beside her. “You sound like your mum. When we were in high school, we were both invited to the Battalion Ball at Upper Canada College. Your mother knew that all the girls would be wearing little pearl earrings, pearl necklaces, strapless pastel dresses with tulle skirts, and shoes with illusion heels so they wouldn’t be taller than their dates.

Taylor moved closer. “So what did she wear?”

“A slinky black silk dress with a high neck and long sleeves. She also wore spike-heeled shoes that made her about six inches taller than the boy she was with. He didn’t care. Every time he looked at her, he just about fainted because he couldn’t believe he was with such a knockout.”

It had been a long time since Taylor curled up on my knee, but that morning she put her arms around my neck and moved in close. “I guess you don’t have a picture of her at that dance.”

“No, Taylor, I don’t. I’ve kept a lot of other pictures of your mum. Whenever you’re ready to look at them, you let me know.”

Taylor nodded. “I’ve always just liked looking at the art she made.” She drew closer. “That’s been enough.”

For once, Taylor and I didn’t hurry our time together. We each had our own thoughts, and we both realized moments like this had become finite. Taylor was the one who broke our reverie. “I’d better get ready for school,” she said. “At the Farewell, I’m actually getting some dorky prize for attendance.”

She started to leave, then stopped. “What did you wear to the dance?”

“Little pearl earrings, a pearl necklace, a strapless pastel dress with a tulle skirt, and illusion heels so I wouldn’t be taller than my date.”

Taylor’s smile reflected both love and pity. I felt a pang. It was the smile her mother had given me a thousand times in the years when we were best friends.

When I came out of the shower, Taylor was in my bedroom dressed, munching a piece of toast with peanut butter, and looking critically at the outfit I’d planned to wear to court: a champagne blouse and slacks outfit that I’d loved for fifteen years.

“How come you’re getting all dressed up today?” she asked.

“I’m going to court with Ginny Monaghan.

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Boy, you should hear the jokes the kids tell about her. They say she’s a cougar.”

“Nice,” I said.

Taylor chewed thoughtfully. “It is kind of mean, isn’t it? And you know, last night, she really did seem nice. None of the boys would dance with Gracie because she’s so tall, and Ms. Monaghan told Gracie that it was great being tall – you could see more.” Taylor turned her attention back to my clothes. “Is this what you’re wearing?”

“I like it,” I said.

“I like it too,” Taylor said. “Except you wear it everywhere.” She cocked her head. “That scarf Zack gave me for Christmas would make it look a little less…”

“Boring?”

Taylor raised an eyebrow. “I was going to say ‘beige.’ ” She flashed off the bed and came back with her scarf: a Paul Klee print that was neither boring nor beige. She held it against the blouse. “Okay?”

“More than okay,” I said. “Thanks. Now you’d better scoot. You don’t want to forfeit your dorky prize.”

I’d just opened my laptop to check out the press coverage of Ginny’s case when the phone rang. It was Ed Mariani, sounding buoyant. “I know it’s never too early to call you,” he said. “You’re like Barry – an early bird. After all that travelling yesterday, Barry was up at the crack of dawn, fresh as a daisy, doing his sit-ups. He still has a twenty-eight-inch waist. I tell him that, after the age of forty, no man but a drag queen has a twenty-eight-inch waist, but he just pats the place beside him on the mat and invites me to join him in a few stretches.” Ed sighed. “As if I could. These days, even bending to tie a shoelace is a hero’s journey for me. But I didn’t call to whine. Your Martha Washington geraniums are ready to be hardened, and when Martha’s ready, she’s ready. Can I drop them by some time this morning?”

“Sure, but can you make it in the next hour? I promised Ginny Monaghan I’d be in court with her this morning.”

“How come?”

“Quid pro quo. I’m going to stay with her campaign until E-Day, then use Ginny’s experience for that script about women in politics I showed you.”

“Shrewd move,” Ed said. “What you wrote is thoughtful and well researched, but it’s a little…”

“Beige?” I said.

Ed laughed. “Well, the exploits of a sexual swashbuckler would add colour.”

“And make a point,” I said. “Ginny seems to feel the rules for female swashbucklers are different from the rules for men.”

“She’s right, of course.”

“I know she is,” I said. “And because of her politics, she doesn’t have a lot of natural allies.”

“Including me,” Ed said. “To be honest, Jo, when I saw her at the party, I was prepared to leave her a wide berth, but she was your guest, and you looked a little desperate. I thought I’d take her off your hands for a while, but I really liked her. Anyway, if you want some company today, I’d be happy to come. Take one for the team.”

“Ginny’s not on your team, Ed.”

“Ah, Jo, you have no idea how large and varied our team is. The walking wounded cover the earth. The least we can do is offer one another a little support when the terrain is unfriendly.”