Gail Bowen - Burying Ariel

Ed raised an eyebrow. “A lawyer, not a father…?”

“Charlie had some problems with his father,” I said.

“Haven’t we all,” Ed said tightly.

I turned to him. “All the years we’ve known each other, I’ve never heard you even mention your father.”

Ed’s usually genial face was a mask. “There was nothing to mention. He didn’t approve of the choices I made in my life. We quarrelled. He died. Case closed.”

“Cases between children and their parents are never closed,” I said.

Ed shrugged. “Let’s keep the focus on Charlie,” he said. “What went wrong between him and his father?”

“Timing,” I said. “Charlie was born the night Howard was elected premier. Our daughter Mieka was born the same week. It was wild. We hadn’t expected to win the election. Almost all our members were rookies, and they had to learn everything from scratch. The day he was sworn in as attorney general, my husband didn’t even know where his office was. Of course, it was a hundred times worse for Howard. He was in charge. Everybody was expected to work fifteen hours a day; then dedication was supposed to kick in. Luckily for us, Mieka was a happy, healthy baby, so she didn’t suffer from having an absentee father…”

Ed finished the sentence for me. “But Charlie suffered.”

“He did,” I said. “So did Marnie. When your child is hurting, you’re hurting, and a lot of the time Charlie’s birthmark made his life a misery. Marnie never coddled him, but she was always there, encouraging him, making him laugh, trying to help him understand why people reacted the way they did.”

“And where was his father in all of this?” Ed’s tone was wintry.

“Marnie and Howard had a very traditional marriage,” I said. “She stayed home with the kids, and he saved the province. A lot of us made the same trade-off.” I was surprised at the bitterness in my voice.

Ed’s look was unfathomable. “Another untold story?” he asked.

“If it is,” I said, “it’s one without villains. We all did the best we could. Sometimes it just didn’t work out.”

“And it didn’t work out for Charlie?”

“It didn’t work out for any of them,” I said. “Charlie always excelled at school. He graduated when he was sixteen. By that time, Marnie and Howard had grown so far apart that when Charlie moved out to go to university, Marnie left, too. She started Ph. D. work at the Centre for Medieval Studies in Toronto. Howard was devastated. He moved east to try to win her back. But the lady was not for wooing. She was a devout Catholic, so divorce was out of the question, but she had no interest in reconciliation. She was having the time of her life.”

“Where’s Marnie now?”

It was a question I would have given anything to duck. But there was no evading the truth. “In a nursing home,” I said. “Her bike was hit by a car when she was on her way to class. Her injuries were incapacitating. She needs total care.”

“That won’t change?”

“No,” I said. “That won’t change.”

“And Charlie blames his father,” Ed said quietly.

I nodded. “He felt that if Howard had been a better husband and father, Marnie wouldn’t have left.”

“And she wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Something like that,” I said. “For the first year after the accident, Charlie wouldn’t even speak to Howard.”

“But they were working things out…”

“Because of Ariel. According to Howard, she was the one who convinced Charlie to give him another chance.”

“Who got another chance?” Taylor was standing in the doorway to the deck. One of her braids had come undone, she had spilled some of her drink on her T-shirt, but as always, she was unfazed.

“Your uncle Howard,” I said.

“Ms. Cousin says everyone deserves a second chance,” Taylor said. “That’s why she didn’t send me to the principal’s office the time I broke her laptop.”

“I never heard about that,” I said.

“That’s because Ms. Cousin gave me a second chance,” Taylor said.

Ed leaped up. “Perhaps it’s time for me to get you ladies a refill?”

When Ed headed for the kitchen, Taylor trailed after him. I wandered to the end of the deck to watch the shifting layers of light that are the prelude to a prairie sunset. As Ed had said, out here it was almost possible to forget.

The shrill of the cellphone in my bag was an intrusion from another world. Livia Brook’s voice was agitated. “Jo, why aren’t you here? There are things you and I should talk about before the vigil starts. You’ve only got about fifteen minutes.”

“What vigil?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t get any of my messages. I e-mailed you and I left word on your voice mail at the office and at home. I’ve just got your cellphone number from Rosalie. There’s a vigil for Ariel Warren tonight in front of the library. It’s supposed to start in fifteen minutes.”

I looked across the parkway. A line of cars was snaking onto University Drive and knots of students were walking across the grass towards the library. The last thing I wanted to do was join them, but Livia sounded close to tears.

“It’s important that we’re all at this event. For her. Please, Jo.”

I swallowed hard. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

I ended the call and dropped the phone back in my bag. When I walked into the kitchen Taylor was perched on a bar stool pouring a bottle of Canada Dry into a blender filled with fruit juices.

“We just have to add the crushed ice,” she said.

“I’m afraid it’s going to have to be a quick drink, Taylor. We have another stop before we go home.” I looked across my daughter’s dark head at Ed Mariani. “I had a call from Livia on my cell. There’s a vigil for Ariel over at the library.”

“Give me two minutes to change, and I’ll come with you,” Ed said.

Taylor turned to me. “Who’s Ariel?”

“A woman I taught with. She and Mieka used to play together when they were little. She died this morning.”

“What happened?”

“Someone killed her.”

Taylor put the ginger ale bottle down carefully on the counter. “Why?”

“We don’t know.”

“Is the vigil to find out?”

“No,” I said. “Sometimes after a person dies the way Ariel did, people just want to get together to think about the things that make us hurt each other.”

Taylor nodded. “Evil,” she said.

“Where did you hear about evil?” I asked.

“Spiderman,” she said. “Every week, Spiderman has to fight evil. He always wins, but the next week there’s always more evil.” A frown crimped her forehead. “That’s just on cartoons, right?”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid that’s the way it is in real life, too.”

The distance between Ed’s house and the library was an easy five-minute walk; that night it was also a miserable one. Taylor, who usually hurtled headlong into the next adventure, walked quietly between Ed and me, holding our hands tightly. We were not alone. The three of us were part of a sorrowful cortege winding its way up University Drive towards the library. Two young women whom I recognized from the class Ariel had been teaching that morning rushed by, arms linked, faces swollen with grief. I squeezed Taylor’s hand, glad to be connected to her and, through her, to Ed.

In good weather, the library quadrangle was filled with students catching a few rays while they read, gossiped, or just zoned out watching plumes of water arc up from the fountain. That night the gathering crowd was tense, and the air pressed down on us, heavy with uncertainty. A portable podium had been set up in front of the doors leading into the library, but no one was standing behind it.