Gail Bowen - The Last Good Day

“And you went there.”

Chris’s face grew soft with memory. “It was incredible, Joanne. Rows and rows of tiny stone statues of mizukos. Their features were so perfect. Most of them were wearing little red caps that their mothers had crocheted for them. They’d left presents for their unborn children too – toys and bags of candy. The article said gifts were the custom, so I left a little truck for my mizuko with his statue.” Chris’s voice broke. “I said a prayer, then I left a letter telling him I was sorry and that I hoped he’d find another pathway into being.”

The warm summer air was vibrating with the hum of crickets and the wishing star had appeared in the darkening sky. Canada Day. But in that moment, Chris Altieri and I were half a world away in an ancient shrine that offered comfort and hope to those who grieved, but from which he’d come away empty-handed.

“The ritual didn’t work for you,” I said.

“I didn’t deserve to have it work.”

“Why not?”

“The woman who wrote the article had a miscarriage, and a miscarriage is no one’s fault. What I did was unforgivable.”

“Nothing is unforgivable,” I said.

Out of nowhere, a voice, peremptory and loud, called out to us. “There you are. I was concerned.”

Chris slumped. “My law partner,” he said, “come to deliver me from temptation. You must have scared them, Joanne. They sent in the big guns.”

When I turned in the direction of Chris’s gaze, I saw Zack Shreve coming down the path. Seeing that he’d caught our attention, Zack waved jauntily.

I touched Chris’s hand. “We can go back to my cottage if you want to talk,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “But I shouldn’t draw anyone else into this.”

In the silence I could hear the wheels of Zack’s chair grind inexorably through the pebbles on the walk. Nothing could stop him.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” I said. “It’s only human.”

Chris’s smile was bleak. “I don’t feel human,” he said. “I feel like my mizuko – as if I don’t belong anywhere.” He left the gazebo and sprinted up the path that led back to the party. As he passed Zack, he bent and kissed the top of his head. It was an extraordinary gesture, but apparently it didn’t touch Zack’s heart. The senior partner of Falconer Shreve rolled up the ramp that made the gazebo, like all the buildings at Lawyers’ Bay, accessible.

“So did our lugubrious friend open up to you?” he asked amiably.

In the enclosed space of the gazebo, I was struck by Zack’s physical presence. As a result of an accident, he had been paraplegic since childhood, and as if to compensate for lower limbs that stubbornly refused to respond to his will, the upper half of his body was a coiled spring. His torso and arms were heavily muscled, reflecting the power of a man who quite literally pushed himself for seventeen hours a day; his head was large and his features were those of a successful actor, memorably drawn and compelling.

He flicked the switch that turned on the gazebo’s overhead light, dimmed it, then wheeled past me to the window that looked onto the lake. When he turned and beckoned me to join him, his voice was silky. “It’s a good night to be alive, isn’t it?”

The view from the glass-walled gazebo was panoramic. Lawyers’ Bay was an almost perfect horseshoe, and the gazebo had been built on the tip of the horseshoe’s west arm. Lights twinkled from the distant shores that enclosed the lake and across the bay the party was in full swing.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s a good night to be alive.”

Zack sighed contentedly. “That raises the question that brought me here. On this night of nights, why is Chris Altieri so miserable?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Because I’m interested in your opinion. Chris’s tete-a-tete with you lasted ten minutes.” Zack checked his watch. “Actually, it was shade less than ten minutes. Still, time enough for a man to reveal his darkest secrets.”

I stood. “I’m going back to the party,” I said.

“I’ll come with you.”

“Be my guest,” I said. “But you’ll be wasting your time. This is between Chris and me.”

“No longer an option,” he said pleasantly. “The moment you came through those gates at the entrance, you were part of all our lives.”

“I don’t remember taking a blood oath,” I said.

Zack waved his hand dismissively. “Nothing that dramatic,” he said. “We’re not the Cosa Nostra, just five friends from a provincial law school who enjoy one another’s company and take our obligations to one another seriously.”

“I take my obligations seriously too,” I said. “And it’s time I went back and handled them.”

“You’re going to talk to Chris.”

“If he wants to talk to me.”

“You might want to rethink that decision.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning you’re part of our little community now. Kevin invited you in. Except for those who’ve joined us through marriage, you’re the first outsider to become part of life at Lawyers’ Bay.” He plucked a perfect rosebud from the bowl on the table and handed it to me. “As you’ve no doubt noticed, ours is not a hardscrabble existence,” he said.

“I’ve noticed,” I said.

“And your family has noticed too. It was a real stroke of luck that your son and his girlfriend got that job running the Point Store.”

“You had something to do with that?”

Zack shrugged. “We just got the ball rolling. Kevin said the kids were having trouble getting summer jobs, so we arranged for them to meet old Stan Gardiner, the owner. Angus and his girlfriend did the rest. Stan said they were the only couple he interviewed who knew shit from shinola.”

A mosquito landed on my hand, and I swatted it. “Any more surprises?” I asked.

“Lily Falconer’s nanny has been given a handsome raise to keep an eye on your daughter this summer,” he said. “There, I’ve emptied my bag. No more secrets.”

“Why would you do all this?”

“We wanted to make sure you enjoyed your holiday,” Zack said.

My late husband had been a lawyer, so I knew the value of keeping my lip buttoned. I twirled the perfect rose and listened to the crickets.

“Ah,” Zack said. “The significant silence, forcing your opponent to say more than he intended to.”

“Somehow I doubt that a charter member of the Winners’ Circle would fall into a trap that easily,” I said.

“You’re scornful of our group?”

“Not of the people,” I said. “Just the concept. I’m not a huge fan of elitist clubs.”

Zack’s laugh was robust. “The Circle was hardly elitist. It was just a group of law students who came together because they were scared and smart and socially inept. It was good for all of us. When I was invited to join, I was like a drunk discovering Jesus. Dazzled. Born again.”

Despite everything, I found myself responding to Zack’s candour. I taught at a university, and I’d seen my share of twenty-year-olds who hid their insecurities behind a carapace of brash egotism. “Undergraduate life can be brutal,” I said.

Zack’s profile had the chiselled authority of a king’s on a coin. “I wasn’t trying to elicit sympathy, Joanne. I’ve made a career out of defending lumps of foul deformity. I’ve never seen myself as one of them. Not that the temptation wasn’t there.”

“Because of what happened to you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Accidents happen. Smart people make the most of them. And smart people don’t take no for an answer.”

“You don’t give up, do you?”

“Not when the stakes are this high.”

“Well, if you’re not going to give up, why don’t you fill me in?”