C.J. Carmichael - A Lasting Proposal

Next she dialed her youngest sister, Kelly, who lived with her new husband and his young niece and nephew in Canmore, a mountain haven about an hour to the west.

“Sis? Holly threw another crying fit this morning. Should I try a different grief counselor?”

Holly hadn’t seemed to benefit from sessions with two previous psychologists and Maureen had given up. But maybe she needed to try therapy one more time…

“It’s a year today, isn’t it?” Kelly said.

“Yeah.” Jeez, even her sister had remembered. What was the matter with her that the date hadn’t registered until Holly had pointed it out?

“It’s pretty normal for her to be upset. Honestly, sometimes it’s you I worry about more. You’re so busy being strong for Holly—”

Yeah, right. If Kelly only knew…

“She’s just twelve, Kelly. And she’s confused. She and Rod were close.” From Maureen’s point of view, almost too close. But that was just sour grapes, probably. Maureen couldn’t pinpoint the moment her doting toddler had begun running to Daddy when she had a problem, instead of Mommy. When Rod died, Maureen had desperately wanted to be there for her daughter. But Holly wasn’t interested in a substitute.

“Of course I understand how hard this is for Holly. But you have to consider yourself, as well. You’ve been working so hard, for so long. Rod had insurance, right?”

“Yes.” And lots of it. But only because she’d filled out the application for him, made him sign it, then paid the premiums every year. She’d discovered early in their marriage that she couldn’t count on Rod for anything.

A lesson Holly had never learned. No way could she admit that her darling father had died as a result of his carelessness. No. In her mind, his death had become her mother’s fault. As if Maureen had wanted him to climb that bloody mountain in the first place!

“Well, why don’t you take some time off work. You could use the break, and having you around more might help Holly.”

“I’ll think about it.” Maureen hung up the phone, dissatisfied. The answer wasn’t for her to spend more time with Holly. The last person Holly wanted to be around these days was her mother.

With the entrance to her underground parking lot in sight, Maureen switched lanes. Now her mood finally lifted. Soon she would be in her office, her sanctuary. Any problem that came up there, she would know how to handle.

THE LOUSY START TO THE DAY had been portentous. At the partners’ meeting, Maureen was urged to take on a new child custody case that would have her spending significant time in Edmonton, three hours north of Calgary. She used up her lunch break on the phone with Rod’s mom, who called from Winnipeg to commiserate on the sad anniversary.

Maureen listened, feeling for the woman’s pain, never letting on that their marriage had been less than perfect, that Rod had been other than the ideal father or that the accident had been anything but bad luck.

Maureen knew better, of course. Because, after almost fifteen years of marriage, she had known Rod.

Her husband had been addicted to extreme sports. Eighteen months ago, he’d decided he had to tackle Mount Everest. In preparation, he’d signed on with a team to climb Mount Aconcagua, a less-demanding peak in the Andes.

At more than twenty-two thousand feet, Aconcagua was the highest mountain in the world, except for those in the Himalayas. Though the ascent didn’t require technical expertise, it would give him an opportunity to see how his body reacted to the drop in oxygen at high elevations.

Unfortunately, altitude sickness had stricken him early on in the climb. Instead of moderating his ascent, Rod had tried to speed up. When his companions noted his growing disorientation, they’d urged him to slow down. But he’d refused until it was too late.

Death, Maureen was told later, can come quickly to those who ignore the early warning signs.

If Rod had gambled with only his life, Maureen could have forgiven him. But his loss had devastated their daughter, and that was hard to absolve.

Especially when Holly’s grief seemed to increase its hold with time rather than ease. First she’d lost interest in her friends; a few months later she’d dropped out of the school band. Her latest report card had revealed falling grades, and during parent-teacher interviews Maureen was told that Holly rarely paid attention in class and almost never handed in assignments on time.

With Rod gone, who, what, could help her now?

During dinner that evening, Holly was silent. When Maureen suggested they watch some home videos of her father after dessert, she relented enough to sort through the row of black cases in the bottom drawer of the entertainment unit.

Maureen stretched her feet out on the sofa as her daughter pressed Play. Seeing Rod’s face suddenly appear on the TV screen made her entire body tense. Across the room on the love seat, Holly pressed a tissue under her eyes.

Maureen had taken the footage from the back deck a couple of autumns ago as Rod and Holly were horsing around in the abundant piles of raked leaves that Maureen hadn’t had time to bag for composting. On the screen father and daughter tumbled and wrestled and shrieked with laughter. But in the tidy family room Maureen and Holly watched in silence.

Maureen was aware of Holly’s quiet weeping. She, however, didn’t shed a tear. Not until the camera caught Rod smiling at his daughter, reaching out to touch a strand of her almost white hair. The expression on his face was absolutely doting.

The dull pain in Maureen’s chest tightened. The video confirmed what she’d always known. Her husband had loved Holly. When he’d been around, he’d treated their daughter like a princess. And that was what Holly remembered about her dad.

Maureen pulled a tissue from the pocket of her jeans and blew her nose. No wonder Holly was so devastated by his death. What man would ever adore her the way her father had?

At ten o’clock Holly went to bed, and Maureen had the house to herself. She put away the videos, stacked a few glasses in the dishwasher, then brewed herself a little coffee, which she mixed with half a cup of hot milk and a teaspoon of sugar.

Memories of Rod and worries about her daughter were too painful to face. Instead she picked up the paper, and in a flash it came back to her. Conrad Beckett’s suicide. How could she have forgotten?

Now she read the article again, every word this time. The reporter had been thorough, delving into the event that had led Conrad to the breaking point—his daughter’s murder almost three years ago. Maureen had some personal knowledge of the case, since the tragedy had occurred on the ranch of her brother-in-law, Dylan McLean, several years before he’d married her middle sister, Cathleen.

It seemed impossible that in a crowd the size of the one gathered at the ranch that night no one had seen anything. Yet, that was what all the witnesses claimed. The weapon was never recovered. Kelly had been one of the RCMP officers assigned to the homicide. In her opinion, the case would probably never be solved.

That didn’t stop everyone in Canmore from having views on the matter. Initially, Dylan McLean had been the number-one suspect. Then later, when James Strongman ran off to Mexico rather than submit to police questioning regarding the subsequent murder of Rose Strongman, James was seen as the most likely villain. But his guilt remained unproved. Also unknown was whether Jilly had been an accidental target. Most people assumed that the shooter had been aiming for her father and missed.

Jilly’s death had been such a senseless act of violence. Who could have guessed that the barbecue would get so wildly out of control? What kind of monster brought out a gun at an event where a young girl was present?