The Glass Coffin

CHAPTER
7

When you live close to the 50th parallel, darkness comes early in deep winter. Sometimes as people gather on these long evenings, the awareness that we are separated from the cold and dark by a glass-thin membrane can create a sense of community that is almost mystical. On the evening of December 23, there was no transcendence at my dinner table, but there was civility, and that was miracle enough for me. Late that afternoon, Claudia and Tracy had stopped by with a new robe and pyjamas for Bryn. While the golden child was checking out her gifts, Claudia had leaned towards me. “I hate shopping,” she whispered, “but even a trip to the mall beats sitting around a hotel room watching reruns of ‘Magictown’ with Tracy.”

The women in Jill’s new family had brought me no joy. More than once I had made some rough calculations about when they might cease to be part of my life. But it was Christmas, and Kevin Hynd was right. Loving well was one way of participating in the mystery.

I turned to Claudia. “Why don’t you two come for dinner,” I said.

And the die was cast. An hour and a half later, Claudia and I had put a meal together, Jill and Bryn were wrapping Christmas gifts in their room, and Tracy, Taylor, and Taylor’s cats were in the front hall marvelling at the new tree and listening to “The Way We Were.”

Claudia and I had agreed to do our bodies a favour and order takeout from my family’s favourite vegan restaurant, Heliotrope. But when we stopped by the liquor store, Claudia threw a bottle of Jack Daniel’s into the basket. “Perfect antidote to virtuous eating,” she said. And it was.

Standing side by side, sipping bourbon and ladling out Moroccan stew, Claudia and I achieved harmony. “Great menu,” I said, handing her a piece of desem pita.

“Great company,” Claudia said. “Being in an enclosed space with Tracy is like ancient water torture – drip, drip, drip till the victim goes insane.”

“How have you managed to share living space all these years?”

Claudia shrugged. “It’s a big house,” she said. “Lots of room to hide. And that’s what we do – lead separate lives.”

“But your lives must intersect,” I said. “And you must have spent a lot of time with Bryn.”

Claudia’s face grew soft. “As much as she’d let me.”

“Are you worried about her?” I asked.

Suddenly, Claudia was wary. “Worried in general or worried because of what happened to Evan?”

“Both, I guess. I know there were tensions between Bryn and her father, but he was her father. Even Angus, who’s not exactly Mr. Touchy-Feely, thinks that Bryn may not be dealing with Evan’s death in the healthiest way.”

Claudia’s mouth tightened. “Who decides what’s healthy? People do what they do. Look at me. I loved my brother, but I’m not going to let you or anyone else see me wailing and rending my clothing. When I woke up this morning, I made a mental list of what I needed to do. Take care of Tracy. Take care of Bryn. Endure. Three items, and I’m handling them all. I don’t need anyone second-guessing me.”

“I didn’t mean to sound judgmental,” I said.

Claudia’s shoulders slumped. “I know, and I know Angus is right to be concerned about Bryn. I am too. But Joanne, Bryn isn’t like Angus – she’s not like anyone I’ve ever known. I’ve tried to make her more… aware of other people. But the truth is she’s just not hard-wired for empathy, no more than Evan was.” Claudia began placing the filled bowls on a tray. “There’s only so much you can do. You know that. You have kids.”

“Nature versus nurture?”

“And nature wins every time,” Claudia said. “All we can do is look at our kids honestly, and do the best with what we have.”

I touched her hand. “You’re right,” I said. “That is all we can do.”

We both had tears in our eyes. “Oh for God’s sake,” Claudia said. “Enough already. Soup’s on. Let’s declare this house a grief-free zone and spend the evening getting to know each other.”

And so we did. During dinner, the seven of us took part in a no-holds-barred, rapid-fire, round-robin exchange of personal trivia. We identified our favourite colours, Christmas movies, actors, brands of toothpaste, poets, kids’ books, and breakfast foods. By the time we were onto the peach cobbler, we were relaxed and easy, and Bryn had confided that she never really got the point of Charlotte’s Web and that, in her opinion, taupe was seriously underrated.

Buoyed by our new camaraderie, we sailed through the after-dinner cleanup and when Bryn stood in the shining kitchen and slid her hand into my son’s, he did not look uncomfortable. “This has been the best evening,” she said. “Why don’t we all take Willie for his walk? Like a real family.”

It was a poignant statement of longing by a young woman who didn’t often reveal herself, and the people who loved her were quick to respond.

“We are a real family,” Jill said.

“All of us,” Tracy said. “Nothing can ever change that.”

“I wonder how Evan would have felt if he’d seen us like this,” Jill said.

“Who knows,” Claudia said. “I never knew how my brother felt about anything. Maybe if I had understood him more, I could have helped.”

“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Jill said, and it seemed she was speaking more to herself than to us. “I never really got to know Evan. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s the truth. I never knew my husband. I wonder now if anyone did.”

Jill’s voice was wistful. It was the first time I’d heard her speak of Evan with emotion, and I wondered if the moment for grief had come. “The night I met Evan we talked about that illumination I gave you,” I said.

Jill smiled. “Not many people can claim that Philo of Alexandria brought them together, but that’s what happened with Evan and me. Felix introduced us, but it wasn’t until Evan saw that illumination hanging in my living room that our relationship moved from the professional to the personal.” Jill’s voice was filled with pain. “Evan never talked about his feelings, but those words seemed to resonate for him. I guess he wanted me to ask about the great battles he was fighting, but I never did.”

Had we been alone, Jill’s remembrance of things past might have opened the door for an intimate discussion. But we weren’t alone.

Tracy had listened to Jill’s words without interest, drumming her fingers on the kitchen counter to indicate her impatience. Finally, she offered an opinion that was as astringent as a bucket of cold water in the face. “It’s too late to talk about what Evan wanted,” she said. “He’s dead. But we’re not, so we might as well go for that walk Bryn’s so keen on.”

We stepped out into a star-bright night. The cold air was wisped with smoke from wood-burning fireplaces, and across the creek, kids screamed with delight as their toboggans ripped down the bank onto ice made thick by six straight weeks of temperatures stuck at twenty below. It was good to be alive on such a night, and from a distance we really could have passed for an extended family that had special cause for gratitude. The house we had come from, like all the houses that backed onto Wascana Creek, was substantial and handsome. We were well fed and expensively clothed. We moved easily, laughed often, and seemed content in one another’s company. Enviable people leading enviable lives, but there were fault lines in the image we presented, and we knew it. And so, as we walked along the levee, we kept it light: reminiscing about other winters; vying with one another to see who could arc a snowball over the shining ice to the bank across the creek; running with Willie as he swam through the snow.

Carefree times, but as we started for home, Willie ceased to be a diversion and became a problem. When he failed puppy socialization class, I had been too humiliated to re-enrol him, and he was making me pay for my cowardice. Inside the house, Willie was the best of dogs: sweet, compliant, and loyal; outside he was a brute and a brat who demanded his own way. That night as he recognized the landmarks that meant his walk was winding down, he balked: dragging me towards every garbage bin in the alley to check out what Taylor called the dog mail; barking when I called him to heel. Finally, when he grabbed at the leash and began a game of tug-of-war with me, Claudia intervened.

“Why don’t you let me take him?” she said.

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I handed her the leash. “He’s all yours,” I said.

She grabbed Willie’s collar. “Time to learn some manners,” she said. With two quick manoeuvres, she flipped him into the snow and pinned him on his back, then she began talking to him. At first he flailed, but as he calmed, her words became endearments. Finally, she put her mouth beside his ear and cooed, “Ready to try again, big boy?” When Claudia brushed herself off and started down the alley, Willie trotted beside her like a show dog.

I opened the back gate for them. “That was nothing short of amazing,” I said.

“It was just a first step. There’s no quick fix. You’re going to have to do this every day, and you’re going to have to enrol him in obedience school. Willie is never going to earn a Ph. D., but he might surprise you.” Suddenly, Claudia laughed her wonderful wry, throaty laugh. “What a life I have – Bouviers and Broken Wand Fairies.”

I was basking in the self-generated glow of the doer of good deeds when Jill and I drove Claudia and Tracy back to their hotel. The evening was nearing an end and, given the players and the circumstances, it had been a triumph. The first time we stopped for a light, Jill gave me a surreptitious thumbs-up. The second time we stopped for a light, Tracy unsnapped her seat belt, leaned into the front seat, and, without preamble, dropped her bombshell. “Claudia and I have decided Bryn should come back to Toronto with us.”

“Nice build up there, kiddo,” Claudia said furiously. “At least you could have waited until the car stopped.”

“I’m not taking the flak for this one,” Tracy snapped. “It was your idea.”

Jill turned in her seat so she could see Claudia’s face. “Why didn’t you bring this up back at Joanne’s?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t exactly leap at our suggestions, and I didn’t want Bryn to hear us fighting,” Claudia said. “She has enough to deal with as it is.”

Jill’s hands were clenched, but she kept her temper in check. “Bryn does have enough to deal with,” she said levelly. “That’s why she doesn’t need the three of us tearing at her as if she were a doll. There’s nothing to discuss here. The moment I took those marriage vows, Bryn became my daughter. I want her with me. She wants to be with me. Before we left Toronto, Evan and I talked to a lawyer about arranging for an adoption. We wanted to make certain my relationship with Bryn was protected.”

“You can’t do that,” Tracy said.

“Don’t say anything stupid,” Claudia said, and her tone was the same one she had used on Willie in the back alley.

“Evan was the one being stupid if he thought he could get away with this,” Tracy said furiously.

Claudia was conciliatory. “Why don’t we just drop this for now? Jill, if things get complicated, the offer is always open.”

“That’s right,” Tracy said. “Something could happen to make you change your mind.” She laughed her trilling Broken Wand Fairy laugh. “You never know, do you?”

We watched in silence as the two women walked into the hotel. “Felix was right,” Jill said.

“About what?”

“About Evan’s family. After we went to NationTV this morning, he came back to the house to talk. He told me not to trust anyone in Evan’s family. He said they’re the kind of people who don’t stop until they get what they want.”

“How well does he know them?” I said.

Jill shrugged. “Obviously better than I do,” she said.

We came home to more surprises. Bryn and Angus were cuddled on the couch watching A Christmas Story and Taylor, the archetypal younger sibling, was sitting on the floor blocking their view.

As soon as she spotted us, Bryn was on her feet. “Come sit down with us,” she said, and her smile was winning. “This is exactly the kind of movie we should be watching together. It’s about this boy named Ralphie. All he wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder air rifle, but everybody keeps telling him he’ll get his eye shot out. It is so sweet.”

“Thanks for asking,” Jill said, embracing her stepdaughter. “But Jo and I have some things to discuss.”

Bryn’s eyes narrowed, and the cheerleader glow left her translucent ivory skin. “You’re not changing your mind about me moving to New York?”

“Of course not,” Jill said. “I don’t want you to worry about that or about anything else. Now, get back to your movie. Jo and I are going to grab a beer and find a quiet place to talk.”

We took our bottles of Great Western into the living room where the traditional Kilbourn tree still held sway. I plugged in the lights. “Beautiful,” Jill said. “It looks exactly the same every year.”

“That’s why Taylor hates it,” I said.

“She’ll appreciate it some day. Bryn already does. She told me she thought it would be wonderful to have a tree with homemade decorations.” Jill sipped her beer. “It’s been good for her to be here, Jo. I think she’s starting to connect more with other people.”

When I didn’t jump in to agree, Jill pressed me. “You’ll have to admit it was thoughtful of her to ask us to watch the movie with them.”

“It was thoughtful,” I said.

“But you still don’t like her,” Jill said.

“I don’t know her,” I said, “and I’m not sure you do either. Claudia and I were talking about this today. She told me she thinks Bryn just isn’t hard-wired for empathy.”

Jill tensed. “And when did Claudia become an expert on genetics?”

“She may not be an expert,” I said, “but she has cared for Bryn since she came home from the hospital. That has to count for something.”

The Christmas lights played out the spectrum of colours across Jill’s face, but she looked wan and abstracted. “Nobody told me,” she said. “No wonder she wants to hang on to Bryn.”

“Jill, how long did you and Evan know each other before you got married.”

“Seven weeks.” Jill chewed her lip savagely. “What the hell was I thinking of? Why wasn’t I asking questions? Why wasn’t I paying attention?”

“Love makes us do strange things.”

“I never loved Evan.”

“You love Bryn,” I said.

Jill placed her palms together and lowered her head. “I do,” she said. “And she needed to be rescued.”

“From what?”

“From that house she lived in. It’s a museum – exquisite, but not a place where people live. Evan’s grandfather was a diplomat in the days when treasures went cheap. Everything you sit on or look at or drink from is priceless: shoji screens, lacquers, Japanese wood-block prints, the most incredible red sandstone Buddha.”

“Not an easy place for a child to grow up.”

“No, and the people in that house weren’t easy people to grow up with. Bryn’s mother was a real piece of work. And you’ve seen Tracy…”

“Annie’s been dead for almost fifteen years. Why does Tracy still live there?”

Jill raised her hands in the universal gesture of the confounded. “Who knows? My guess is that when Tracy discovered that the spotlight would always shine on her sister not her, she just followed the path of least resistance.”

“A role in a children’s show and living at home – someone else’s home at that. Not exactly a sparkling destiny,” I said.

“No one in that house has a sparkling destiny – it’s a house of half-lived lives.”

“Claudia seems to fill her days.”

“A pair of Rottweilers, a niece who can’t wait to leave, a sister-in-law who’s a basket case, and a mother who hasn’t been out of the house in forty years – not my idea of a fully realized life.”

“Caroline hasn’t been out of the house in forty years?”

Jill nodded. “Apparently after Claudia was born, her mother suffered a postpartum ‘incident.’ That’s when the agoraphobia began.”

“Claudia told me today that her mother never wanted children,” I said. “Was the incident caused by guilt?”

Jill shrugged. “Who knows? That family is full of secrets.”

“Still, someone must have tried to get treatment for Caroline.”

“Of course, they did,” Jill said. “Her husband was a professor at U of T. He tapped every colleague and acquaintance he had at the School of Medicine. They offered to psychoanalyze her, medicate her, and modify her behaviour. Caroline turned them all down flat.”

“Why?”

“According to Evan, his mother saw herself as a woman like Virginia Woolf – a person with an exceptional mind and exceptional problems. Apparently, she simply refused to allow people she considered to be her intellectual inferiors to roam around in her brain.”

“And her family accepted that?”

“They had no choice.” Jill ran a thumbnail down the label of her Great Western. “For all her problems, Caroline is a force to be reckoned with. She has a lot of money and she really is brilliant. She has one of those quicksilver minds that shimmers from one idea to the next.”

“Her illness must have put a pretty serious dent in her shimmering.”

Jill nodded. “It’s been devastating for her. She should have been setting the world of ideas on fire. Instead, she has nothing more to do than muse over her tchotchkes, supervise her garden, and read everything ever written about agoraphobia. She’s an expert there – in every way. She’s so knowledgeable, she’s written articles that have appeared in medical journals. She just can’t break out. She says it’s as if she’s in a fairy tale and some evil witch cast a spell on her, so that every time she tries to step out of the house, the demons attack.”

“Is she bitter?” I asked.

“People make accommodations…” Jill gazed at her bottle. “Empty,” she said.

“Are you up for another round?”

“Nope,” she said. “I think I’ve had enough fun today. I’m going to hit the sack.”

After Jill went up to bed, I checked on the kids. Angus and Bryn were engrossed in the movie credits, but the question of whether Ralphie would ever get his Red Ryder so he could shoot his eye out would remain unanswered for Taylor. She was sound asleep.

I tapped my son’s shoulder. “Santa’s still doing his evaluations,” I said. “Are you up for a good deed?”

“You want me to carry Taylor upstairs?”

“I do,” I said. “It’s the end of the day, and your sister is no longer a featherweight.”

We climbed the stairs together and tucked Taylor in. “Dismissed with thanks,” I said.

Angus didn’t leave. “Mum, have you got a minute?”

“Of course.”

He followed me down to my room, closed the door, and stared at his shoes.

“Let me help,” I said. “Is this about the fact that Bryn is back on the A list.”

Angus coloured. “We had a long talk. She told me that sometimes she doesn’t know how to behave. Like with her dad dying – she says she must have been in a state of shock or something.”

“She seemed pretty focused to me,” I said. “She wants to move to New York and she isn’t about to let anything interfere with her plans.”

“I know that’s how it looks,” Angus said. “But she’s trying. You saw how nice she was tonight.”

“Yes,” I said, “I did.”

Angus looked at me hard. “You don’t think she’s sincere.”

“Just take it slow,” I said.

“Because?”

“Because the fact that a young woman believes taupe is an underrated colour isn’t enough to build a relationship on.”

As if on cue, the taupe-lover herself burst through the door. This time there was no mistaking Bryn’s sincerity. She was so agitated her words tumbled over one another. “There’s something going on in the back alley. A lot of lights, and I think police cars. Should I get Jill?”

“No,” I said. “Let her sleep till we find out what’s happening.”

As we followed her, Bryn filled us in. “The dog was making this weird noise, so I let him out. The minute he got in the backyard, he started to bark. I went out to the deck to see what was going on. That’s when I saw…,” she shrugged, “whatever I saw.”

We all put on coats and boots; I called Willie, snapped on his leash, then the four of us went to investigate. As soon as I unlatched the gate that opened onto the alley, Willie made a sound I’d never heard him make before: a low, guttural warning growl. I knew how he felt. The quiet alley along which we’d walked an hour before was floodlit, and khaki tarpaulins had been thrown over the snow. Half a dozen police officers were tipping garbage bags from the bins onto the tarps, then searching through their findings. It was not a pretty sight.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Police business,” a cop who didn’t look much older than Angus said.

“That’s my garbage you’re going through,” I said. “So it’s my business too. What are you looking for?”

The young cop took a step towards me, and Willie strained at the leash, growling at him with bared teeth.

“Hold that dog back,” the young officer said.

“He doesn’t do anything without a command,” I said.

“I’ll get the inspector.”

Alex Kequahtooway came back with the young cop and, in an instant, Willie morphed from killer to buddy. Tail wagging, he leapt up and began licking Alex’s face. The corners of the young cop’s mouth turned up as he looked at me. “Looks like your dog needs a command,” he said.

“Heel, Willie,” I said in my new Claudia-inspired voice, and amazingly, Willie came and sat at my feet.

I glanced at the tarpaulin – and recognized some treasures from our garbage: takeout containers from Heliotrope, some wizened tangerines that had been hiding in the back of the crisper, an empty bacon package. A young cop was going through the detritus with the fervour of a man panning for gold. “So, Alex,” I said, “what exactly is it that you’re looking for?”

Alex’s left eye twitched, a sure sign of tension. “I can’t answer that,” he said. “This is a police investigation. I think you should leave.”

“It’s a pleasant night,” I said. “And this is public space.”

“Suit yourself,” Alex said.

After five minutes, my bravado had dissipated and my feet were cold, but at least I wasn’t alone. Angus had stayed with me, so – surprisingly – had Bryn. Both were uncomplaining, but I was just thirty seconds from calling it quits when the young officer closest to us held up an empty prescription pill bottle. “Bingo,” he said.

Alex gave the discovery the briefest of glances and said, “Good work. Bag it for forensics.”

I stepped towards the tarpaulin. “All that effort for a pill bottle,” I said.

Alex hesitated before responding; when he did, it was clear he had decided to push my buttons. “It’s evidence,” he said. “A conscientious citizen told us we might find something helpful to our case here, and sure enough we did.” He looked hard at me. “What’s the matter, Jo? You seem a little shaken.”

“Just concerned about my neighbourhood. I hope your people are planning to clean up this alley – kids play out here.”

“Unlike civilians, we don’t leave messes we’re not prepared to clean up,” Alex said. Then he turned to Angus, and his voice grew gentle. “Could I have a minute with you?” he asked.

“Sure,” Angus said.

“Bryn and I will go back to the house,” I said. “You can catch up with us.”

We were barely out of earshot when Bryn pulled me close. “Was that my aunt’s pill bottle they found?”

“We can talk about it inside,” I said.

Bryn was relentless. As soon as we stepped through the kitchen door, she turned to me. “So was it hers?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m guessing it was.”

“Then she killed Mr. Leventhal?”

“Bryn, what do you know about the way Mr. Leventhal died?”

“Enough,” she said. “There’s not a lot that happens I don’t know.” Her eyes were glittering and her cheeks were pink. She seemed almost feverish with anticipation. “So do you think the police will arrest her?”

“If it’s Tracy’s prescription bottle, they’ll certainly want to talk to her.”

Bryn seemed oddly gratified. “Then they’ll stop thinking it was Jill,” she said and added, as if to herself, “It was a lucky thing the police were out there.”

“Lucky for who?” I said.

She looked incredulous. “For Jill and me.” She stifled a yawn. “I’m really tired. Angus and I are going shopping tomorrow morning, so I’d better get some sleep.” Suddenly, she remembered her manners. “Thank you very much for the nice evening,” she said.

I was still reeling when Angus came in.

“Everything okay here?” he asked.

“Couldn’t be better,” I said. “Bryn had a nice evening and she’s gone to bed.”

“She wants to go shopping tomorrow,” he said.

“She mentioned that,” I said. “What did Alex want?”

Angus unzipped his jacket and turned away. “He just wanted to say Merry Christmas. He’s still a great guy, Mum. He taught me how to drive. He taught me a lot of stuff. I always kind of thought you two would end up together.”

“For a while, we kind of thought the same thing,” I said. “But it’s not going to happen, Angus. It’s over.”

My son gave me a bear hug. “Well, it was fun while it lasted,” he said.

“You’re right,” I said. “It was fun.”

Suddenly alone, I moved to the glass doors that overlooked the alley where Alex was supervising the search for evidence. Despite everything that had gone wrong between us, I still felt connected to him, and I longed to tell him it was time he came in from the cold. If, as Nadine Gordimer says, human contact is as random and fleeting as the flash of fireflies in the darkness, Alex and I had made the most of our moments. Hands joined as we sat at the symphony listening to Mozart; heads bent towards one another as we played killer Scrabble in front of the fireplace; bodies touching as we lay on the sand at the lake, our books forgotten, listening to the pounding of the waves and thinking ahead to the possibilities of the old couch on the screened porch, we had always been smart enough to know we were happy. But at some level beyond the reach of reason, we had both known that our firefly moments were numbered.

My encounter with Alex might have provided conclusive proof that our relationship was over, but it had also raised some unsettling questions that had nothing to do with our personal relationship. I would have bet the farm that the prescription bottle in the dumpster had belonged to Tracy Lowell, but how it had made its way from her room at the Hotel Saskatchewan to my back alley was a mystery. The identity of the helpful citizen who had called the police tip-line was less enigmatic. Bryn was both fastidious and self-involved; yet she had stood in the cold with me watching a police officer paw through garbage until he came up with exhibit A.

A cynic might conclude that she had known all along that he would find what he was looking for.