Joan Kilby - A Mom for Christmas

Nicola sat on the bed and picked up a teddy bear from the lace-edged pillow. She couldn’t imagine Uncle Roy, austere and remote in his insurance man’s suit, arranging teenage memorabilia or—Nicola wiped a finger across the polished maple bedside table—dusting regularly. No, June must have done this. She and Charmaine had always been close, the more so because Charmaine was the only child and took after June in looks and temperament.

The front door opened. Nicola heard footsteps moving between the hall and the kitchen and got up to go greet her aunt and uncle. As she came out of Charmaine’s room she heard a commotion of clattering pots and excited voices. Oh, no! The pasta.

Nicola raced downstairs and stopped dead in the kitchen doorway. The spaghetti was boiling over, froth and scalding water pouring down the sides of the pot and onto the floor. June was at the stove, sliding the pot off the heat.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” Nicola exclaimed. “Where’s the mop?”

“It’s in the cupboard in the laundry room,” June called.

Nicola grabbed the mop and raced back to the kitchen. June turned around to face Nicola and her face went white.

“It’s all my fault,” Nicola apologized again. “I wanted to have dinner ready when you and Uncle Roy came—”

June shook her head, speechless, and pointed her finger at Nicola. Nicola looked down. She still had Charmaine’s stuffed bear clasped in one arm.

“Oh, that,” she said, relieved no further harm had been done. “It’s just a teddy bear.”

June swallowed with apparent difficulty. “No one. No one,” she emphasized, “is allowed in my baby’s room.”

Oh, dear. “I didn’t move anything except for the bear,” Nicola told June apologetically. “I’ll put it back right now.”

“I’ll do it.” June crossed the kitchen and took the bear from Nicola’s unprotesting grasp.

Her uncle Roy, solid in blue pinstripe, came into the room. “When will dinner be ready?” Silence followed his query. He looked over his glasses at his wife holding the bear. “Never mind.”

Nodding vaguely, he went to the glass-fronted cabinet beside the fridge and took out a crystal tumbler. “Er, Scotch, anyone?”

June brushed past him into the hall without reply.

“No, thanks.” Nicola ran upstairs after her aunt then paused in the doorway to Charmaine’s room.

June was bent over the bed, carefully positioning the bear in his place atop the satin-cased pillow. Tenderly she adjusted the pink bow around his neck so the loops were perfectly flat and not twisted.

“Aunt June…”

June straightened and turned, her face calm. “It’s all right, Nicola. No harm done. I should have mentioned that this room was off-limits. I thought the shut door was indication enough.” She glanced around as if checking that everything else was in place. Apparently satisfied, her shoulders relaxed.

Nicola stepped inside the room and shut the door. “Can we talk?”

June stiffened again. “Dinner—”

“It can wait a few minutes.” Nicola took her hands. “Please.”

“Your uncle is allowed one drink before dinner,” June informed her, maintaining her erect posture. “If the meal is delayed, he’ll have two. It’s not good for his heart. The doctor said—”

Nicola dropped her aunt’s hands and pulled her into a hug. “You poor thing. Losing Charmaine must have been so awful for you.”

June sagged in her arms and drew in a long ragged sigh. “Oh, Nic, I miss her so much. She was my beautiful little girl. Why did she have to die?”

“It was an accident,” Nicola said, holding her. Even as she spoke, she wondered if that were true.

June drew back, shaking her head. “Aidan was right beside her when she went off the cliff. Why couldn’t he have saved her?”

“I don’t know,” Nicola said miserably. “Didn’t anyone ask him?”

“He said it all happened too quickly.”

“Maybe it did. If she slipped and lost her balance…” She trailed off, shuddering at the image those thoughts conjured. Charmaine falling off the cliff onto rocks. A powder-blue ski suit, stained red. Golden hair matted with blood.

“Why was she off the groomed ski trail?” June went on doggedly. Nicola got the impression she’d asked these same questions a million times. “Why was she even in the permanently closed area?”

“Was she?” Nicola said sharply. “I didn’t know that.”

Her aunt nodded. “Aidan knew better than to take anyone there, even an expert skier like Charmaine.”

“Why did he?”

“He says he didn’t. He says he found her there and was trying to get her to come out.” June plucked a tissue from the box on the dresser and blew her nose. “Charmaine wouldn’t have gone out of bounds. She never did anything against the rules.”

Nicola thought of the times her cousin had coaxed her into skipping school to hitchhike into Squamish and hang out at the Dairy Queen. “We don’t always know people as well as we think we do.”

“I know my little girl,” June said firmly. “She was a loving wife and devoted mother. I know that if Aidan had taken proper care of her she would be alive today.”

There was a long silence during which Nicola worked up the courage to ask in a cracked whisper, “Do you believe he pushed her?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. Oh, I don’t know what to believe. He should have taken better care of Charmaine,” June complained. “He left her alone too much.”

“Could she have committed…” Nicola could hardly bear to say the word suicide. She didn’t need to. One look at her aunt’s horrified expression told her June knew what she was trying to say—and disagreed vehemently.

“Absolutely not,” June said. “Charmaine had it all—a devoted husband she adored, a brand-new baby she loved to distraction. Even with Emily’s health problems—”

“Emily had problems?” Nicola asked. “Dad never told me that.”

“It was nothing serious,” June said dismissively. “I didn’t tell Stan—what could he do down there in Australia?”

“He’s family, and would want to know,” Nicola demurred quietly. “What was wrong with Emily?”

“Oh, I hardly remember,” June said. “Something to do with her spine, a developmental thing. She’s fine now.”

“Still, Charmaine would have been upset,” Nicola said. “She was so squeamish about sickness or injury.”

“Charmaine was strong,” June contradicted. “She was devoted to that baby.”

“I’m sure she was,” Nicola said soothingly. She thought of the letters her cousin had written during her pregnancy, full of happiness and anticipation. Nicola had thought it odd the letters had stopped once Charmaine had given birth but had attributed it to the heavy demands of a new baby. Now the lapse made even more sense; Charmaine was busy caring for a sick child with no time to write.

“Well,” June said, blotting her eyes with another tissue. “Let’s have dinner before Roy gets sloshed. I don’t want to lose him, too.”

Nicola went out and waited for her aunt to turn off the light and close the door behind her. “He’s a grown man. Can’t he self-regulate?”

June rolled her eyes. “My dear, he’s a baby. If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t get dressed in the morning.”

Nicola said nothing, thinking it was sad that June overestimated her late daughter and underestimated everyone else.

Aidan dished up beef stew on bone-china plates; Charmaine had refused to eat off anything less and Aidan had never gotten around to buying stoneware. The plates, like the crystal figurines, weren’t to his taste, but he kept them. The self-help books his mother had given him after Charmaine’s death suggested he not make major changes in his life for at least a year. One year had turned into six and Aidan had fallen into a deadly inertia, oblivious to his surroundings.