Caron Todd - Her Favorite Husband

An outline, no. Doodles, yes.

A spot above her eyebrow began to throb. She rubbed it and tried to feel only concern for Liz’s welfare. After a book a year for fifteen years—all of which seemed to end up in every library, school and child’s bookshelf in the land—what could have happened to sink this one? Painting and writing were Liz’s life. They were all she wanted to do.

Or had been, once upon a time long ago and far away. Before she moved back home to Manitoba from Vancouver, before she married her pumpkin farmer, before they started their family. Liz wouldn’t be the first woman to sink under the weight of domestic bliss. Clearly, she needed a hand.

When Sarah tried to call she got a busy signal, so she went back to her e-mail program, hoping to catch Liz online. After a couple of false starts in which she either sounded accusing or unreasonably cheerful she typed:

In a bit of a predicament, are you? Don’t panic! We’re here to help. We’ll talk about it more when I see you, but why not give me a head start understanding the problem? Oliver said there aren’t any paintings yet. You told me once the images help you see the story. Don’t they usually come first?

Sympathetic, she hoped, the question about images a sprinkling of breadcrumbs, the beginning of a path out of the forest. But firm.

By the time she had dressed and put on eyeliner and mascara, there was still no answer from Liz. Sarah took an apple from the side pocket of her suitcase and went out to the balcony, crunching.

She could see the city center, busy with cars and pedestrians. Closer to her, a rocky outcropping extended into a chilly-looking lake. Clusters of small buildings climbed up and down the rock, some apparently teetering on the edge. That must be the Old Town. Ian had written about it, rough shanties built by prospectors during the 1930s gold rush.

To the east, the water went on forever. To the north, beyond the city, green and rust-colored growing things stretched into the distance. In an austere way, it was beautiful.

She couldn’t put her finger on what it was about the north that got to her. Not as a direction, not as a place. Maybe, like New York in the song, as a state of mind? It pulled at her. Could it be actual magnetism, the North Pole using its power?

Her worries took a couple of steps back. She wanted to get out there, see the town and the lake close up. Explore, for real.

IAN WAS MORE THAN LATE for his appointment. He missed it entirely. He rebooked the interview, for the following day, and went to spend the remainder of the morning at a restaurant that promised authentic northern fare, everything from caribou steak to musk ox burgers to freshly caught Great Slave Lake fish. He ordered bannock and coffee, opened his laptop and tried to work.

Tried but failed.

Sarah had been in his bed. Sarah Bretton Kingsley Bennett Carr. How long would her name be by the time she was fifty? There weren’t many decisions he regretted—even the bad ones usually had value—but that “I’ll call you a taxi” moment was one. Her face when he’d told her to go…he wouldn’t forget that expression in a hurry. And then the way she’d rearranged herself, that sinuous movement that turned her breasts and legs into the only things in the room…

“I’m not sure it’s that easy,” she’d said, mixing sultry with cool. She was right. The whole uncomfortable scenario of him being wrong about that and her being right about it was complicated by the memory of her leg hooked over his hip. Silky, but insistent.

Taking into account what he knew about Sarah and about the city’s hotels, he tried to guess where she’d be staying, if she hadn’t already zipped back to Vancouver.

As he guessed, she was registered at the newest, most luxurious place in town. When the switchboard put him through to her room, the answering machine picked up.

“Sarah? It’s me.” Although there weren’t many customers in the restaurant, he lowered his voice as he said, “Don’t know about you, but I didn’t get much sleep last night. My behavior—”

What could he say about his behavior?

“It was inexcusable.” Strong word. He felt better, saying it. “Pretty much from hello. You probably know what happened. Same old problem, right? One of them, anyway.”

He understood the banana peel remark had been an exaggeration, but it was true enough. Sarah jumped into things without looking, and she thought it was a good quality.

“That’s no excuse,” he added, wishing he hadn’t brought up the past. Blaming the other person had a way of watering down an apology. “I was a jerk no matter what the provocation. Anyway, I’m sorry for being thoughtless last night. And I hope you’re okay this morning.”

He imagined her voice, teasing, amused, saying of course she was all right. He used to wonder if it was even possible to hurt her. It was easy to infuriate her, but most of the time she kept things light. Or sexy. Like last night, walking toward him naked, as if he’d be mesmerized and do whatever she wanted.

As if? She’d nearly got her wish.

“I have to go, Sarah. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

As soon as he ended the call he realized he shouldn’t have left it open-ended. He should have said goodbye. None of that till we meet again stuff. A definite we’re done goodbye.

That’s what it was in his mind. Always had been.

He woke up his sleeping laptop. In one pane, he began playing a downloaded video that showed how diamonds formed. In another, he typed Column, Week Two.

Diamonds are forged by intense heat and pressure deep in the earth’s mantle….

Boring. Delete.

Diamonds are almost as old as the world itself. Some say they come from the stars….

Boring and vague. Delete.

He tried again.

The only diamond that ever caught my fancy was small and flawed, but that imperfect fraction-of-a-carat held a whole world, a whole future.

He stared at that for a while, then deleted it, too.

SARAH’S SPIRITS BEGAN TO rise as soon as she felt the sun on her face. Last night couldn’t be undone. The problem of the missing book couldn’t be solved, not today, not until she and Liz sat down together. All she wanted from this moment in time was to take it in, to see and hear and smell it.

For a small city, Yellowknife bustled. Ian had talked about that in his column, about people coming from all over the world to work in the diamond industry. Walking along the sidewalk, she heard so many languages spoken it was like an outdoor United Nations. The speakers of those languages were mostly men. Young, strong men of the wood-chopping, diamond-digging variety.

She hadn’t planned to shop, but all along her route to the Old Town the stores were filled with local arts and crafts. She found treasures every few steps—soap-stone carvings, photographs of the summer’s never-setting sun and the winter’s northern lights, traditional beaded leatherwork and incredible quilts with colorful, hand-sewn northern scenes. Soon she had souvenirs for everyone in her family and at Fraser Press, and had moved on to birthday and Christmas presents.

Just when she thought she couldn’t carry another thing, she came to a bookstore. Bookstores, she’d always thought, were as good as a rest, so she opened the door with her two free fingers and stepped inside.

“Oh, my goodness,” a woman said, hurrying from behind a counter. “Let me help you with those packages.” For a moment they were almost bound together, trying to untangle bags without dropping any. “Have you bought the entire town?”

“Not yet, but there’s still tomorrow.” Sarah pulled her collar away from her throat, letting a breath of air reach her skin. Her sweater, hand-knitted Peruvian alpaca wool, had seemed perfect when she was packing. “I didn’t think to check the weather before leaving home. It’s summer.”