Gail Bowen - Burying Ariel

Charlie made a gesture of dismissal. “There’s so much about the past that just doesn’t seem relevant any more,” he said. “Solange is going through her own hell.”

“I know,” I said. “But that doesn’t exempt her, and it doesn’t make what happened in the past irrelevant. We’re not just talking about being dumped here; we’re talking about murder. If Ariel really was afraid of Solange, it matters.”

Charlie drew in his narrow shoulders and looked down at the grass. “Ariel and Solange had an unusual relationship.”

“Unusual in what way?”

He looked thoughtful. “In its voltage,” he said finally. “It was far too intense – at least on Solange’s side. It wasn’t always like that. At first, Ariel and Solange were just friends, the way any two people who work together are. Solange even came by the house and had a drink with us a couple of times, but after they went to Mount Assiniboine it was different.”

“Solange told me that Ariel found herself on Mount Assiniboine.”

Charlie shook his head with the weariness of a man forced to explain a self-evident truth. “Ariel found herself with me. I gave her everything she needed or wanted. She’d lost sight of that, but we would have worked it out if Solange hadn’t come along with her insights.”

“So you don’t believe that Ariel was liberated by her experience on Mount Assiniboine.”

Charlie’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Liberated. That has to be Solange’s word, and it couldn’t be more wrong. Joanne, we’re not talking about girl power here. It’s something more complex.”

“Then explain it to me,” I said.

“Solange loved Ariel,” Charlie said. “Ariel felt that brought certain obligations.”

Howard’s reaction was a sputter. “You mean Solange and Ariel were

…?”

“They were nothing.” Charlie’s voice was low with fury. “Solange was temporary. An abberation. Ariel’s destiny was intertwined with mine from the day we met. She was just confused.”

“You and Ariel talked about this confusion?” I asked.

“We didn’t have to,” Charlie said. “I didn’t need flaming letters in the sky. When you’re as close to someone as I was to Ariel, you learn to read the signs. After Mount Assiniboine, the signs were there. She didn’t want to be with me. There was never an angry word, but one night I brushed her arm and she flinched. It wasn’t calculated. It was the response a person has to touching something they find repugnant, like a snake or a slug. I ignored it. I knew that if I just kept loving her…”

“But loving her wasn’t enough,” I said. “She wanted out.”

“She thought she wanted out. But even when she was saying we had to break it off, her real feelings were apparent. She told me that her life had been immeasurably enriched by knowing me, that she couldn’t have asked for more in a lover or a friend.” He rubbed his eyes with his fists, like a child fighting sleep. “That’s why I couldn’t let her go. I knew neither of us could have a life without the other.”

“Jesus!” Howard’s curse was an explosion in the tranquil air. “I can’t listen to this.”

When Howard jumped from his chair, I grabbed his arm. “Let Charlie talk,” I said.

Howard’s son continued like a man in a trance. “So she stayed. I tried to anticipate everything she could possibly want: food, flowers, music – even Fritz. She’d always wanted a dog, so we went to the Humane Society and got Fritz. I thought our relationship was working.” He hunched into a position that was almost foetal. “Two weeks ago I came home, and she was moving out.”

“Fraser Jackson was with her,” I said.

“He was just incidental,” Charlie said wearily, closing the topic.

I reopened it. “So you came home by chance…”

“When it came to Ariel, I never left anything to chance,” he said. “Everything about her was too important. I knew her habits, her routines. She always folded her nightgown and left it under her pillow. That morning, I checked. The nightgown wasn’t there. That’s what alerted me. So I asked Troy to finish the show, and I came home early. Of course, she’d hoped to avoid a confrontation.”

“Did it get violent?” Howard asked.

“Do you mean apart from the fact that she was ripping our lives apart? No, Dad, it didn’t get violent. It was just sad – really sad – for both of us. She seemed so tired, but I couldn’t help myself. I lost it…”

“Lost it how?” I asked.

He winced at the memory. “I cried. You know, that thing real men aren’t supposed to do. She just seemed to slump. It was as if I’d hit her. That’s when she told me she’d broken it off with Solange, too.”

Suddenly, Howard was all lawyer. He leaned forward. “What did Ariel say exactly?”

Charlie’s face tightened. “She said, ‘I can’t go through this again. I thought she at least would understand. She’s always insisted that all she wants is for me to be happy… but she was so angry. I’m frightened. She’s done some terrible things.’ ”

“And she mentioned Solange by name?”

“Not by name,” he said, “but who else could it be?”

Howard pounded his fist into his palm. “Why the hell didn’t you mention this before?”

Charlie looked at his father in amazement. “How anxious would you be to revisit the worst day of your life?”

They left early, not much past eight o’clock. Charlie insisted on staying at the home he and Ariel had shared, and Howard insisted on not leaving his son alone. I watched their cab pull away, then went upstairs to check on the kids.

Taylor was already in bed, eyes squeezed shut, courting sleep, but when she heard my step, she bolted upright. “I’m so excited,” she said. “Are you?”

“Very,” I said. “Now, I want to take a closer look at Mouseland. The light wasn’t very good outside, and we were all a little distracted.”

“By that boy,” she said.

“By that man,” I said, correcting her. “Charlie’s twenty-seven years old. The same age as Mieka.”

Taylor took in the information. “He seemed more like a kid.” She shrugged. “Let’s look at the picture. You didn’t even notice that I put you and me in there.”

I picked up Mouseland and carried it over to the bed. It really was a terrific piece: the Legislature was Crayola-bright and surreal, but Taylor had drawn the duly elected mice and the sulky displaced cats with a cartoonist’s eye for detail. At the top of the marble steps leading into the Legislature, a matronly mouse in sensible shoes raised her paws in delight as a shining-eyed young mouse with braids twirled on one toe.

I pointed the figures out to Taylor. “Us?” I asked.

She nodded happily. “This is going to be so fun, Jo.”

“You bet,” I said. Then I leaned across her and turned out the light.

Eli’s door was closed, but when I knocked, he invited me in.

“I just wanted to thank you for helping Charlie tonight.” I said.

“I didn’t do anything special.”

“You were there,” I said, “and that was what he needed.”

Eli matched the fingertips of his hands and flexed them thoughtfully. “My uncle used to tell me this was a spider doing push-ups on a mirror,” he said.

“Funny guy, your uncle.” I said.

Eli smiled. “I wish he was here.”

“Me, too,” I said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. Even your uncle couldn’t have done a better job than you did tonight.”

For a moment, I stood outside Eli’s doorway thinking about all the things I should do: phone Ed Mariani and ask him if there had been any problems with the mid-term; take the dishes out of the dishwasher; mark some of the essays that seemed to breed in my briefcase; iron a blouse to wear to the Legislature the next morning. There was no shortage of worthy projects awaiting my attention. I rejected them all in favour of a hot shower and clean pyjamas.