Gail Bowen - The Last Good Day

“Not since grade nine,” I said. “It was a long time ago.”

Rose laughed. “Longer ago for me, but I never forgot it. Penelope’s husband went away and all these men wanted to marry her. She was weaving something, I don’t remember what, but she told the men she couldn’t get married until she’d finished her weaving. So the men waited and waited. They didn’t know that every night Penelope went to her room and ripped out her weaving and every morning she started over.”

“You think that’s what Lily’s doing with her life?”

“I know it. My sister always tries to get me interested in romance novels. I’ve read a few, but all those happily-ever-afters just don’t ring true to me. Those Greek stories rang true – that’s probably why I still remember them after sixty years.” Rose squared her shoulders. “Would you mind herding up the girls? There are some graves I’d like to check on.”

“You have family here?”

“Everyone around here does. My parents. The aunt I’m named after. Two of my brothers. More cousins than you can shake a stick at, and, of course, Gloria.”

“I didn’t realize you and Gloria were related.”

“We’re not – at least not by blood. But on this reserve you don’t have to share a family tree to be considered family.”

As soon as we got back, the girls marched off to work on their Inukshuk. Unencumbered by the obligation to leave signposts for future generations, I went back to the cottage. When I opened the front door, the heat hit me like a wave. The Hynds had not believed in air conditioning. The memory of Betty, cool and fragrant, propelled me. I turned on the ceiling fan, found a roomy cotton nightie in my drawer for the nap I needed, and made my way to the shower to wash away a morning of dust and melancholy. The phone was ringing when I stepped out. I grabbed a towel and ran to answer.

Zack’s voice was teasing. “So were you out back milking the chickens?”

“Nope. I was just getting out of the shower…”

“That mental image may just get me through the rest of the day.”

“Troubles in your kingdom?” I said.

“Well, let’s see. The courthouse air conditioning fried itself this morning, so the building is hotter than hell. And the Crown is cleaning my clock. Apart from that, everything’s swell.”

“Come back to Lawyers’ Bay. I’ll let you sit next to the fan and score all the points.”

“Best offer I’ve had all day,” Zack said wearily. “I’ll go back in there and throw myself on the mercy of the court.”

I wasn’t up to Virginia Woolf, and Harriet Hynd’s library was short of trashy novels, so I chose a worthy book on birds of the Qu’Appelle Valley and was asleep before I turned the first page. I woke with a post-nap sense of well-being. It was three o’clock. I walked out to the road and looked towards the gazebo to check on the girls. They were toiling away in the mid-afternoon heat. Feeling guilty that I had been cool and lazy all afternoon while they worked, I sliced a loaf of banana bread, filled a Thermos with lemonade, dropped plastic cups and napkins into my beach bag, and went to assess their progress.

The girls were ready for a break. The Inukshuk was complete, but the wheelbarrow was full of rocks and more were strewn about the sand. Discovering the precise combination of stones that would fit the terrain and stack on top of one another without falling had proven difficult. Flushed with heat and effort, the girls made for the shade of the gazebo. It was the first time I’d been in the gazebo since the night Chris Altieri died, and the memories of Chris’s sadness and of Zack’s subtle menace that evening were sharp-edged and unsettling. Oblivious to anything beyond the moment, the girls poured lemonade, wolfed banana loaf, and discussed the engineering problem with which they’d been wrestling.

“When we were at the cemetery, we noticed that this arm of Lawyers’ Bay was right across the lake,” Gracie said. “We thought it would be neat to build this Inukshuk with a sight hole that pointed towards that huge cottonwood tree at the edge of the cemetery.”

“My father says that, judging from its size, that tree must have been there forever,” Isobel said.

Gracie rolled her eyes. “I thought we were going to be here forever trying to get the angle right,” she said. “This is the third time we’ve had to take down what we’ve built and start again, but I think we’ve got it. Maybe you’d like to have a look, Mrs. Kilbourn.”

“I’d be honoured,” I said.

The girls came with me as I walked out to the Inukshuk and peered through the sight hole.

“Third time’s the charm,” I said. “You’ve got it.”

They barely had time to exchange high-fives before we heard the squeal of brakes and the slam of a car door behind us. All day I had been carrying an image of Lily Falconer as frightened and vulnerable, a broken child who grew into a damaged adult. The wrathful woman who exploded out of the front seat of her Jeep and ran towards us was a shock.

Lily’s face was contorted with rage and her voice was acid. “Put those rocks back,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re destroying.” She didn’t give the girls a chance to obey or explain. Instead, she went to the Inukshuk and ripped out a flat stone from the base. Within seconds, the meticulously planned and executed structure collapsed.

Clutching her prize, Lily dropped to the beach and began exploring the support under the gazebo. She was desperate, as if she had to slide the rock into place before everything fell apart. She narrowed her focus on her daughter.

“Where did you take this from, Gracie?”

The colour had drained from Gracie’s face. Her freckles looked painted on, like a doll’s. I was afraid she was sliding into shock. I stepped between Lily and her daughter. My hands were shaking, but my voice was steady. “No one destroyed anything, Lily. We bought the rocks in Fort Qu’Appelle. I drove the girls in myself to get them.”

Lily looked at me with loathing. “It’s so easy for you to be the good one,” she said. Her comment stunned me. So did the fact that she was still holding the rock she had ripped from the Inukshuk. For a moment it seemed entirely possible that she would hurl the rock at me. Instead, she dropped it on the beach, walked back to her Jeep, threw it into reverse, and sped off.

Gracie watched her mother’s car disappear from sight. “Welcome home, Mum,” she said. Then she picked up the stone her mother had dropped, placed it back where it belonged, and began patiently to restore the Inukshuk.

I stayed with the girls while they rebuilt what had been destroyed. Without discussion, they realized the importance of their task, and they worked silently and deliberately. Finally, it was done.

One by one the girls checked the sight hole, then Gracie nodded to me. “Your turn,” she said.

I stared across the lake at the graveyard. When I spotted the cottonwood tree, I said, “Better than ever. Why don’t we call it a day and go home?”

Gracie’s smile was battle-weary. “Good plan,” she said. “But can I go to your home, not mine?”

Not long after the girls had settled down with a video, Rose appeared at our door.

“I’ve come for Gracie,” she said.

“She’s in the living room with Taylor and Isobel watching a movie,” I said. “Before you get her, we should probably talk for a minute. There was… an incident.”

Rose stepped inside, closing the door behind her. “Lily told me,” she said. “How bad was it?”

“Pretty bad,” I said.

Rose’s small body sagged with defeat. “More unravelling.” She took a deep breath. “I’d better get my girl, see what we can salvage.” She frowned, seeming to turn something over in her mind. “Do you think it would be easier for Gracie if Taylor and Isobel came back with her? I could give them all dinner.”