Gail Bowen - The Nesting Dolls

“No. I just want to work on it for a while before you see it again.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Isobel’s coming over.”

“That’s good. She can come out here and read while I work. She’s interested in that poetry book you got me for my birthday.”

“That’s okay with Isobel?”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “She and I like doing separate things together.”

“I underestimate you,” I said.

Taylor frowned and turned back to her canvas. “It evens out.”

“Meaning?”

She gave me the Sally smile. “Sometimes we underestimate you.”

Kym met me by the hall linen closet when I came in. “I changed the sheets,” he said.

“Our washing machine’s getting a workout,” I said. “I just changed those sheets last night.”

“I know, but Zack still has a fever, and clean sheets feel good.”

“I’m enjoying them too.”

“Zack tells me you’re still sharing a bed – despite the coughing and sweats and chills.”

“That’s part of the deal, isn’t it?” I said.

Kym nodded. “So they tell me. I’d better check on Zack. He wanted to shave.”

“Why don’t I go in and keep him company with that,” I said. “He must be the last man in the world to use a straight razor.”

When I went in, Zack was wearing a robe and sitting in his wheelchair shaving.

Being a paraplegic is expensive. Zack’s bathroom was, in the phrase of the day, “universal,” which meant it could be used by pretty much anyone whatever their physical limitations. We had been adamant about not having the bathroom look like a hospital, so all the features Zack needed to function independently had been incorporated into an innovative design that was sleek and beautiful.

I sat down on the edge of the bathtub. “Need anything?” I asked.

“Just someone to talk to,” he said. “What are you up to today?”

“I thought since Kym and the Wainbergs are going to be here for a couple of hours, I’d get all my errands out of the way. We’re supposed to get more snow this afternoon, so I thought you and I could crawl into bed and watch Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Zack rinsed the soap off his razor. “I thought we were living The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

“This version has songs,” I said. “And it’s funny.”

“Bring it on,” Zack said. He placed his razor back in its case, and turned his chair towards the door.

“After you’re settled, I’m going to pick up groceries,” I said. “Anything strike your fancy?

“Do we have any more of that chicken soup?”

“No, but I can make some. No problem at all. And I have to hit the mall – briefly. Mieka called, and the Core Rec Centre has seven boys between ages of fourteen and seventeen on their list and not a single present for that age group. I thought I’d get some Sports Mart gift certificates.”

“Wise choice. Sports Mart has neat stuff. Jo, I’d like to make a donation too. Falconer Shreve’s had a good year, and when I was a kid, I spent a lot of hours in places like the Core Rec Centre. The Christmas party was always a big deal. Give me a minute to find my chequebook.”

When the Wainbergs arrived, I told Isobel that Taylor was in her studio and that Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Common Things was somewhere on her desk. Isobel’s face lit up. “I love Neruda,” she said before dashing off to get the book.

Noah’s complexion was usually ruddy with health, but that morning, he was grey and careworn. After Isobel wandered down the hall to Taylor’s bedroom, I poured him a cup of coffee. “Are you okay?” I said.

“I’m fine. I guess none of us is getting any younger. How’s the man in your life?”

“His nurse, Kym, whom I am delighted to discover is a strapping young man, is here to keep track of him and decide when he’s ready to confront the world again.”

Noah added cream and sugar to his coffee. “Delia will be relieved to know that Zack’s being well taken care of.”

“How about you?” I said.

“I have broad shoulders, and we seem to be moving in the right direction. Did Zack tell you that Nadine Perrault and I agreed to call off the private investigators?”

“He did, and it’s good news. As the needlepoint pillow my grandmother gave me says, ‘Least said, soonest mended.’ I keep the pillow in my office at the university. It’s been very helpful over the years.”

Noah gave me a sidelong glance. “If they handed that pillow out to new lawyers, the litigation rate in this country would drop by 90 per cent.”

“Would that be a bad thing?”

He smiled. “I don’t get a vote. A lawyer who doesn’t practise is a eunuch.”

I sat down opposite him. “Well, I’m not a lawyer, and I think that as a husband and father you’re handling this very well. One way or another, you and Delia are going to have a permanent relationship with Nadine. You don’t want to start out under a cloud of accusations and counter-accusations.”

“Agreed. There’s been enough ugliness. It’s time to turn the page. Nadine and I discussed something along the lines of an open adoption.”

“But Jacob would live with you and Delia.”

Noah’s blue eyes flashed. “Absolutely. That issue was never on the table. Nadine’s a realist. She knows that if this case came to court, she’d lose.” The tension left his face. “The point is that there isn’t going to be a court case. Nadine was remarkably open about her mental state. Mourning Abby is taking a heavy toll. Nadine says she’s exhausted and is having difficulty concentrating. We agreed that Jacob deserves better.”

“He does,” I said, “and so does Nadine. Finding out the hard way that she isn’t capable of giving Jacob what he needs would only be another blow for her. My children weren’t as young as Jacob when their father died, but I still cringe when I remember how badly I failed them during those first months. It was all I could do to get out of bed in the morning.”

Noah looked at me hard. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I wasn’t like me,’ I said. “I know what Nadine’s going through because I’ve been through it. And it’s more than just the loss of a partner you love, it’s believing that the death was absolutely arbitrary – a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I don’t think I ever heard how your husband died.”

“The newspapers called it ‘The Good Samaritan Murder.’ Ian was coming back to Regina from a funeral in Swift Current. There was a blizzard. The driver of a stranded car flagged him down and when Ian got out to help, the driver and her boyfriend beat him to death with a tire iron.”

Noah stared at his coffee cup. “I’m sorry, Jo. I didn’t know.”

“For months, the authorities treated Ian’s murder as a chance occurrence – a case of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Like Abby.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And, Noah, you have no idea how terrible it was. I’d been so certain that I could build a cocoon around our family by cooking balanced meals, observing the speed limit, and making regular appointments for us all to get our medical and dental check-ups. Losing Ian to what seemed like an existential blowout made me question the underpinnings of my life.”

“And you think that’s what Nadine’s going through?”

“I do. Abby was a woman who left nothing to chance; yet she was raped and murdered by a stranger in a strange city. When something like that happens, the old safe world disappears, and there’s nothing to hold onto – at least that’s the way it was for me.”

“Nadine says she’s dreading going back to the house she and Abby shared. I suggested she stay in Regina for a while. She could spend time with Jacob and get to know us a little better.”